BX 9211 
■ B8 T5 
Copy 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.. Copyright No... 



Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/8g 9 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 

OP THE 

/ 

THROOP AVENUE 
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
AND MISSION 



BROOKLYN 
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SESSION 
1899 

L- 



CO 



38481 



Copyright, 1899, by 
The Session op the Throop Avenue 
Presbyterian Church 



'WO COPIES RECSIVEO. 




THE DEVINNE PRESS. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 



Souvenir Programme op the Jubilee 1 

The Jubilee Celebration 22 

A Few Extracts from Letters 28 

The Silver Jubilee Sermon 36 

Eev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D. 

The Character of Our King 53 

Rev. Louis O. Rotenbach. 

The Joy of the Children of the King ... 58 
Rev. Arnold W. Fismer. 

The Character of Our King 67 

Rev. Wm. J. Hutchins. 

The Joy of the Children of the King . . . 74 
Rev. Roland S. Dawson. 

Introductory Address 78 

Mr. Darwin R. James. 

Retrospect and Prospect 84 

Rev. R. G. Hutchins, D. D. 

The Character of the Ideal Christian Worker . 91 
Rev. Henry van Dyke, D. D. 



The True Aim of a Young People's Association, So- 
cially 100 

Eev. Eobt. J. Kent, D. D. 



The True Aim of a Young People's Association, 



Spiritually 108 

Eev. Cornelius Woelfkin. 

The Missionary Character of the Throop Avenue 
Church as Shown in its History. . . . 114 
Eev. Newell Woolsey Wells. 

The Church and Foreign Missions . . . .125 
Mr. Eobert E. Speer. 

The Jubilee Outlook Sermon 136 

Eev. Eobt. a. Hutchins, D. D. 

Introductory Address 153 

Mr. Frank E. Hibbard. 

The True Object of the Sabbath School . . 158 
Eev. John Erskine Adams. 

Forward 168 

Eev. Theo. L. Cuyler, D. D. 

The Closing Address 179 

Eev. J. D. Wells, D. D. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

v 

Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Portrait of Eev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D. . . 36 

Throop Avenue Mission 52 

Our Joyful Song 53 

Portrait of Mr. Darwin R. James .... 78 



SOUVENIR PROGRAMME 

OF THE 

JUBILEE 

OF THE 

THROOP AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



3 



Sabbath, October 30, 10*30 a* m. 

THE SILVER JUBILEE SERVICE 
1873 of the 1898 

PRESENT PASTORATE 

ORGAN PRELUDE . Fantasia, " Festivo " . . Moritz Brosig 

Doxology 
Invocation 

Rev. Alfred H. Moment, D. D. 



ANTHEM . . " Sing Unto the Lord " . . Wilkinson 

PSALTER — Psalm cm 

GLORIA Davis 

HYMN " When Morning Gilds the Skies " 



SCRIPTURE LESSONS, Deuteronomy 29 ; Romans 16 
Rev. Robert G. Hutchins, D. D. 

Prayer 

Rev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D. 
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND OFFERING 



SOLO "0 Deem Not" . . . Schnecker 

H. M. C. Vedder 

HYMN ..." Lord, With Glowing Heart I'd Praise Thee" 

Sermon 

Rev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D., Pastor 
ANTHEM . . " Break Forth Into Joy " . . . Simper 
HYMN "On Our Way Rejoicing " 

Prayer and Benediction 



ORGAN POSTLUDE j ^^ lujah Chorus " ~ j . Handel 



4 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



Sabbath, October 30, 2*30 p. rrt. 

THE JUBILEE SERVICE OF THE 
1852 THROOP AVENUE MISSION 1898 
SABBATH SCHOOL 

TO BE HELD IN THE 

THROOP AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
DARWIN R. JAMES, Presiding 



Doxology 

RESPONSIVE READING 

prayer 

GLORIA 

HYMN " Arise, Arise, Ye Valiant Hearts " 

ADDRESS . Darwin R. James, Superintendent 

HYMN "Our Joyful Song " 

ADDRESS . "The Character of Our King ' ' 
Rev. Louis O. Rotenbach 
Stony Point Presbyterian Church 

HYMN " Jesus, King of Glory " 

ADDRESS . "The Joy of the Children of the King ' ' 
Rev. Arnold W. Fismer 
Hopkins Street Presbyterian Church 

HYMN " Oh, We Are Volunteers " 

OFFERING 

HYMN " Joy to the World" 

Hpostles' Creed 
Benediction 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



5 



Sabbath, October 30, 2*30 p* in. 

THE JUBILEE SERVICE OF THE 
1867 THROOP AVENUE CHURCH 1898 
SABBATH SCHOOL 

TO BE HELD IN 

THE CHAPEL 
FRANK R. HIBBARD, Presiding 

OPENING EXERCISES 

Quarterly 

HYMN 104 Sacred Songs 

RESPONSIVE READING 
HYMN 28 Sacred Songs 

ADDRESS . " The Character of Our King" 

Rev. Wm. J. Hutchins 
Bedford Presbyterian Church 

HYMN 44 Sacred Songs 

ADDRESS . " The Joy of the Children of the King" 
Rev. Roland S. Dawson 
Ainslie Street Presbyterian Church 

HYMN 222 . Sacred Songs 

MISCELLANEOUS 

CLOSING EXERCISES 

Quarterly 

Benediction 

Rev. L. R. Foote, D. D. 



6 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



Sabbath, October 30, 7*30 p. m* 
1852 THE JUBILEE SERVICE lg98 

Commemorating the 46th Anniversary of the 

FOUNDING OF THE THROOP AVENUE 
MISSION SABBATH SCHOOL 

TO BE HELD IN THE 

THROOP AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
DARWIN R. JAMES, Presiding 

ORGAN PRELUDE . " Offertoire in E Flat" . Edouard Batiste 
ANTHEM . . " 0, Come, All Ye Faithful" . . . Novello 

prayer 

Rev. Alexander Miller 

HYMN " O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee " 

SCRIPTURE LESSON 
QUARTETTE . . " Lead, Kindly Light " . . . Buck 
J. H. Roese, H. M. C. Vedder, F. G. Lamy, F. T. Burr 

OFFERING 
ADDRESS . Darwin R. James, Superintendent 

ADDRESS . Rev. Robert G. Hutchins, D. D. 

First Presbyterian Church, Fostoria, Ohio 
ANTHEM . . " Praise Ye the Father " . Gounod-Weston 
ADDRESS " The Character of the Ideal Christian Worker" 

Rev. Henry van Dyke, D. D. 
Brick Presbyterian Church, Manhattan, New York City 
HYMN "He that Goeth Forth with Weeping " 

prayer and Benediction 

( (a) Auld Lang Syne — Selected 
ORGAN POSTLUDE . < {b) " Grand Triumphal Chorus " 

( in A Major . . Alex. Guilmant 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 7 

Monday, October 31, 8 p* m. 

THE JUBILEE FESTIVAL OF THE 
1852 THROOP AVENUE MISSION 1898 
SABBATH SCHOOL 

TO BE HELD IN 

THE CHAPEL ON WILLOUGHBY AVENUE 

Tuesday, November i t 8 p« m 

THE JUBILEE FESTIVAL OF THE 
1867 THROOP AVENUE CHURCH 1898 
SABBATH SCHOOL 

TO BE HELD IN 

THE CHAPEL 



8 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



&kdnesda)? t November z t 8 p* m. 

1877 THE JUBILEE SERVICE 1898 
OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATION 
OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 

OF THE 

THROOP AVENUE MISSION AND THE THROOP AVENUE 
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TO BE HELD IN 

THE CHURCH 

CHARLES L. ADAMS, Presiding 

ORGAN PRELUDE . Gavotte . . .A. Dupont 

ANTHEM ." 0, Come Let Us Worship " — Psalm xcv . Mendelssohn 

prayer 

Rev. J. C. Wilson 
Puritan Congregational Church 

SCRIPTURE LESSON — I. John, ii, 1-19 

Rev. Frederic T. Steele 
f Mount Olivet Presbyterian Church 

HYMN "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" 

ADDRESS, I " The True Aim of a Young People' s Association, Socially " 
Rev. Robert J. Kent, D. D. 
Lewis Avenue Congregational Church 
ANTHEM . . " The Lord is Exalted " .... West 

ADDRESS, II "The True AirnofaYoung People 1 s Association, Spiritually" 

Rev. Cornelius Woelfkin 

Greene Avenue Baptist Church 
SOLO . . " The Lord is Mindful of his Own " . Mendelssohn 

Miss Miriam Gilmer 
HYMN " Hail Thou God of Grace and Glory " 

Benediction 

Rev. J. E. Fray 
Duryea Presbyterian Church 
ORGAN POSTLUDE . Overture to "William Tell " . Rossini 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



9 



Cbursday, November 3, 8 p* m. 

1852-1898 1862-1898 1867-1898 1873-1898 
THE JUBILEE REUNION AND INFOR- 
MAL RECEPTION OF THE THROOP 
AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 

Including Present and Former Workers in the Sabbath Schools 

friday, November 4, 8 p* m. 
1852 * 1898 

THE JUBILEE MISSIONARY SERVICE 

TO BE HELD IN THE CHURCH 
RUSSELL W. McKEE, Presiding 

ORGAN PRELUDE | c h ™himes » } • C " A ' E ' Harriss 
,/ANTHEM . " The Glory of the Lord Shall Endure " . Spinney 

Prayer 

Rev. George D. Hulst, Ph. D., South Bush-wick Reformed Church 
SCRIPTURE LESSON— Matthew xxvm 
Rev. W. W. T. Duncan, Tompkins Avenue M. E. Church 
SOLO . . . " Eye hath not seen " .... Gaul 

Miss Georgia Leet Watson 
HYMN .... "Saints of God, the Day is Brightening" 



ADDRESS 



" The Missionary Character of the Throop 
Avenue Church, as Shown by Its History " 
Rev. Newell Woolsey Wells 
Junior Pastor South Third Street Presbyterian Church 
/ AMTtTC ,, ( " For the Lord is a Mighty ) 

^ANTHEM . \ God "-Psalm xcv ['Mendelssohn 

ADDRESS ... Mr. Robert E. Speer 

Secretary Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions 
HYMN " How Beauteous on the Mountains " 

Benediction 

Rev. Francis H. Marling, D. D. 
ORGAN POSTLUDE .March, " Le Prophete " . . Meyerbeer 
2 



10 JUBILEE MEMORIAL 

Sabbath, J^owmber 6, 10*30 a* rru 
1852 v 1898 

THE JUBILEE OUTLOOK SERVICE 



ORGAN PRELUDE 



Allegro from 
" Fourth Sonate 



Merkel 



Doxology 
Invocation 

1/ANTHEM . . " Lord, All Thy Pathways " . . Pinsuti 
PSALTER — Psalm cxlv 

GLORIA Davis 

V HYMN . . . "Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness" 

prayer 

SCRIPTURE LESSONS 
ANNOUNCEMENTS 
OFFERING — Foreign Missions 

SOLO . . " The King of Love My Shepherd is " . . Gounod 

Mrs. John T. Barry 
HYMN ... " Oh, Where are Kings and Empires Now " 

Sermon 

Rev. Robert G. Hutchins, D. D. 
First Presbyterian Church, Fostoria, O. 

ANTHEM ." Oh, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem " . . Knox 

HYMN " Forward Be Our Watchword" 



prayer and Benediction 

ORGAN POSTLUDE . " Triumphal March " 



. Dudley Buck 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



11 



1867 



Sabbath, November 6, 7*30 p* m* 
THE JUBILEE SERVICE 

Commemorating the 31st Anniversary of the 

FOUNDING 



1898 



OF THE THROOP AVENUE CHURCH 
SABBATH SCHOOL 

INCLUDING the CLOSING EXERCISES of the JUBILEE WEEK 
TO BE HELD IN THE CHURCH 



ORGAN PRELUDE 



FRANK R. HIBBARD, Presiding 

Offertoire in F " 



^ANTHEM 



HYMN 



Anthem 

ADDRESS 
ADDRESS 



ANTHEM 
ADDRESS 



More Love to Thee, Christ 



Edouard Batiste 
. William Reed 



ADDRESS 



prayer 

Rev. Alfred H. Moment, D. D. 

"Saviour King, in Hallowed Union " 
SCRIPTURE LESSON — Psalm lxiii 
ANNOUNCEMENTS 
OFFERING 

" No Shadows Yonder " — (Holy City) . A. R. Gaul 

Frank R. Hibbard, Superintendent 
' ' The True Object of the Sabbath School ' ' 
Rev. J. Erskine Adams 
Ross Street Presbyterian Church 

. " Gloria " Mozart 

. . . . "Forward" 

Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. 
. . Rev. John D. Wells, D. D. 



HYMN 



Senior Pastor South Third Street Presbyterian Church 
"Work, for the Night is Coming" 



prayev and Benediction 

XUDE. V'^ajor) " 113 } • 



Alex. Guilmant 



12 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



CHORUS 



Miss Marie A. Wolfe 
Miss Gertrude A. Koos 
Miss Wilhelmina Gordon 
Miss Mary Dreeke 
Miss Grace E. Freestone 
Miss S. H. D. Freestone 
Miss C. B. Sauter 
Miss Ruth Willis 
Miss Gertrude Goerz 
Miss Gertrude Kappes 
Miss A. C. Riley 
Miss Fannie J. McDougall 



Miss Clara E. Ketcham 
Miss Anna B. Kohart 
Miss E. E. Gordon 



SOPRANO 
Miss Lillian Elsasser 
Miss May Bender 
Miss Margaret Bender 
Miss E. M. G. Keller 
Miss Jessie M. Losee 
Miss A. W. Miller 
Miss L. Miller 
Miss S. Helrigel 
Miss C. G. Schueltz 
Miss S. E. Schueltz 
Miss L. Schaeffer 
Miss Kittie Mandery 

CONTRALTO 
Miss L. Willans 
Miss A. Brown 
Miss L. Lindorfer 



Miss L. Knieriem 
Miss J. P. Meisinger 
Miss G. Bauer 
Miss A. M. Hanson 
Miss K. Neidlinger 
Miss C. L. Schneider 
Mrs. H. Faustmann 
Miss E. Smith 
Miss H. Watson 
Miss E. Southern 
Miss B. Meiser 
Mrs. George D. Glass 



Miss Mary W. Strong 
Mrs. Geo. B. Arnot 
Mrs. F. I. Ketcham 



Miss M. L. E. McKnight Miss Emma E. Simonson Mrs. W. H. Weeks, Jr. 



Miss E. Crandell 



Miss M. L. Conners 



Miss Grace W. Watson 



Mr. F. I. Ketcham 
Mr. W. Vanderkoogh, Jr. 
Mr. Wm. M. Strong 
Mr. R. McKnight 



TENOR 
Mr. Wm. Christie 
Mr. F. A. Holbrook 
Mr. E. Gucker 
Mr. Geo. B. Arnot 
Mr. Olaf Gates 



Mr. W. G. Schelker 
Mr. E. Hollender 
Mr. Geo. A. Ellison 
Mr. R. C. Sack 



BASSO 

Mr. F. Henderson Hibbard Mr. John T. Godfrey 
Mr. Fred R. Leach Mr. F. Walker 

Mr. R. Homer Rich Mr. G. A. Lewis 

Mr. W. T. Morrison Mr. S. H. Mills, Jr. 



Mr. C. A. Koos 
Mr. C. F. A. Schulz 
Mr. C. Haaf 
Mr. J. Surpless, Jr. 



Mrs. John T. Barry 



SOLOISTS 
Mrs. H. M. C. Vedder Miss Miriam Gilmer 



Harry M. C. Vedder, Director C. W. Allen, Organist 



A FEW FACTS 
CONCERNING THE THROOP AVENUE 
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

THE Throop Avenue Mission Sabbath School 
was organized in October, 1852, and is there- 
fore forty-six years old. Of the early workers there 
still remain identified with the School Mr. and Mrs. 
Darwin R. James and Mr. Henry M. Strong. Mr. 
J ames has been connected with the enterprise since 
the second Sabbath after the school was started. 
He was chosen Assistant Superintendent in 1857 
and Superintendent in 1859, which office he has con- 
tinuously filled for nearly forty years, except during 
a period while he was a member of Congress. Mr. 
Strong has been identified with the School since 
1853, and Mrs. James since 1858. The present Mis- 
sion building, Throop Avenue, near Ellery Street, 
was opened in 1862. In the autumn of 1873 the 
School numbered 873. It has upon its roll at the 
present time 1,075, including the officers and teachers. 

The gifts of the scholars, which have amounted to 
many thousands of dollars, have always been entirely 
devoted to benevolent objects. These objects have 
embraced the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, 
Publication and Sabbath School work, Freedmen, 

13 



14 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



and other similar work. The School has always been 
mainly supported by its officers and teachers. Some 
of the early teachers, who have been removed for 
many years from the locality, have delighted to 
send regularly their annual liberal contributions for 
its support. Such a work cannot die out in the 
hearts of its early friends. The self-denying spirit 
and untiring devotion of these early workers, who 
walked for many years two miles each way over 
rough roads, through winter's cold and summer's 
sun, pitched the spiritual key high and established 
a standard of consecration for all the subsequent 
history of the School. And not only so, but these 
early workers, a few of whom remain together, with 
others of a similar character coming into the general 
work a few years later, have been the shaping spir- 
itual influence of the congregation, and have given 
the distinctive tone and character to the entire 
Church. 

THE CHURCH ORGANIZED. 

The Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church was or- 
ganized in June, 1862, in the present Mission build- 
ing, and it remained there until October, 1867, when 
it removed to a Chapel which had been built on lots 
presented to the Society by Mr. Darwin R. James, 
on the corner of Throop and Willoughby Avenues, 
which at the present time are entirely covered by 
the Chapel then built and since twice enlarged, and 
by the beautiful and commodious edifice in which 
the congregation now worships, which was erected 
in 1889 and 1890. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



15 



THE HOPKINS STREET GERMAN CHURCH 
ORGANIZED. 

After the Mission Chapel was vacated by the re- 
moval of the congregation to "Willoughby Avenue, 
the Teachers saw an opportunity for the establishing 
of a German Presbyterian Church in the neighbor- 
hood. They therefore tendered the use of their 
Mission Chapel for the purpose. Within a year a 
Church had been organized and a minister installed. 
In the early years of the pastorate of the Rev. J ohn 
Meury, the second pastor, who was settled in 1870, 
lots were purchased, a commodious brick edifice on 
Hopkins Street, near by, erected, and opened for 
worship in the early spring of 1873, and the success 
of the enterprise became well assured. Mr. Meury's 
untiring labors for this Church terminated in his 
decease in the early summer of 1887. The Church 
now prospers under the faithful ministry of the Rev. 
Arnold W. Fismer. It numbers 385 communicants 
and has a Sabbath School of 425 members. 

THE THROOP AVENUE CHURCH SABBATH 
SCHOOL ORGANIZED. 

The Rev. John Hancock was the first pastor of the 
Throop Avenue Church. The Rev. John Lowrey, 
who served from 1867 to 1873, was the second pastor. 
These brethren have both departed this life. 

The Church School was organized October 27, 
1867. The Church School is therefore thirty-one 
years old, the Church being thirty-six years old — 



16 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



the disparity of age resulting from the fact that the 
Mission School was the Church School while the 
Church met in the Mission building. At its organi- 
zation the Church School numbered sixty-five offi- 
cers, teachers, and scholars. Of the teachers, Mrs. 
Russell W. McKee, alone, has been in continuous 
service from the commencement of the School. In 
1870, after serving the School for three years as 
Secretary and Librarian, Mr. Frank R. Hibbard was 
transferred to the Mission, where he remained as 
teacher in the intermediate department for thirteen 
years, and afterward as Superintendent of the primary 
department until 1894, when he returned to take the 
office of Superintendent, which he now occupies. 
The present enrollment of the School is 8 officers, 75 
teachers, and 1,055 scholars, a total enrollment of 
1,138. Of the present teachers thirty were formerly 
scholars in the School. During the last thirteen 
years 330 scholars have been received into the com- 
munion of this Church, being an annual average of 
twenty-five communicants. Fifty-two per cent, of 
the additions to this Church on examination, for 
thirteen years, have come from the ranks of this 
School. 

THE CHURCH SABBATH SCHOOL MISSION- 
ARY SOCIETY ORGANIZED. 

In December, 1874, the Sabbath School Missionary 
Society was organized, since which time one half of 
the contributions have been devoted to benevolent 
objects, and one half have been used for the support 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



17 



of the School. Among the objects which have 
regularly received the contributions of the School 
have been the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, 
Publication and Sabbath School Work, and Freed- 
men. The School has constantly enjoyed the bless- 
ing of its Lord and Master. The teachers have 
shown their devotion to it by their faithful and self 
denying labor on behalf of the spiritual welfare of 
their scholars. 

MOUNT OLIVET SABBATH SCHOOL AND 
CHURCH ORGANIZED. 

The Church has always felt it to be both an obli- 
gation and a privilege to work. January 1, 1882, 
inspired by Mrs. Darwin R. James, the Session sent 
forth one of its devoted elders, Moses G. Young, to 
organize the Mount Olivet Sabbath School, which 
School is now located at Evergreen Avenue and 
Troutman Street. At its organization the School 
numbered seventy scholars. In 1887 the Mount Olivet 
Church was organized with members taken from the 
roll of the Throop Avenue Church. At its organiza- 
tion the Church numbered 97 and the School 689. 
At the present time the Church numbers 217 and 
the School 738. The Rev. Frederic T. Steele is the 
pastor. 

REV. LEWIS RAY FOOTE'S LABORS BEGUN. 

Rev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D., began his labors as 
Pastor of the Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church 
3 



18 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



November 1, 1873. His ministry has therefore been 
sustained for just a quarter of a century. This 
period has been one of steady growth and develop- 
ment in all the departments of the life of the Church. 

The Sabbath School membership of the Throop 
Avenue Church during this quarter of a century has 
ranged from 1,290 per annum to 2,876 per annum. 
The annual average has been 2,130. The present 
enrollment, which includes the members of the Home 
Department, is 2,630. 

BUILDING OPERATIONS. 

The frame Chapel, built at Willoughby and Throop 
Avenues in 1867, was enlarged in 1875. It was en- 
larged again in 1882, and moved to where it now 
stands, in order to prepare the way ultimately for a 
church edifice. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the founding of the Church, in 1887, a resolution for 
inaugurating a movement for the raising of funds 
for the erection of a new edifice unanimously pre- 
vailed. The corner-stone of that building was laid 
November 2, 1889. On November 2, 1890, just one 
year from the date of laying the corner-stone, the 
Church was occupied for worship. On Easter Sab- 
bath, 1893, the edifice, having been entirely paid for, 
was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God. 

SOME STATISTICS OF THE CHURCH. 

There have been added to the Church during this 
quarter of a century, as a result of the ordinary 
means of grace, on confession of their faith in Christ, 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



19 



1,248 persons, or an annual enrollment of about fifty. 
The additions by letter have amounted to 825, an 
annual average enrollment of 33 — making a total 
enrollment of 2,073 and an annual average total 
enrollment of nearly 83. The present enrollment of 
communicants is 918. Two hundred and thirteen 
adults have been baptized and 639 infants. Two 
hundred and thirty-nine members have departed this 
life during the twenty-five years, and the minister 
has officiated at a total of nearly 1,000 funerals, and 
has married 463 couples. The pastoral calls of the 
minister have amounted to 22,000, an annual average 
of 900. 

MISSIONARY OFFERINGS. 

The Church has had a unique history in respect to 
its method of giving to missions and to benevolent 
work. A few weeks after its organization a plan 
was inaugurated for taking an Offering each month 
for Foreign Missions and an annual Offering for Home 
Missions. Two years afterward that plan was modified 
by an arrangement for an Offering for Foreign and 
Home Missions each alternate month, which plan has 
been followed up to date, so that an Offering for 
Missions has been made in this Church every month 
of its existence for thirty-six years. " Them that 
honor me I will honor." 

FUNDS CONTRIBUTED. 

The funds contributed for the current expenses of 
the Church, as reported to the General Assembly for 



20 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



the twenty-five years, have amounted to the total 
sum of $141,623. This is an average annual ex- 
penditure of $5,665. 

The funds contributed for benevolence have 
amounted in twenty-five years to the sum of $165,- 
902. This is an annual average contribution of 
$6,638. In other words, the Church has contributed 
each year $973 more than it has expended for its cur- 
rent expenses. In twenty-five years the Church has 
contributed for benevolence, annually, not only as 
much as it has expended on itself, but $24,279 more. 
Besides all this, during this quarter century there 
have been contributed $82,000 for buildings. The 
total of all funds contributed amounts to $389,525, 
being an annual average sum of $15,581. It is also 
to be added that the entire Church property is abso- 
lutely clear of debt and is valued at $120,000. Be- 
sides, all current expense bills are paid up to date. 

L. R. F. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



21 



THE SESSION. 

Eev. LEWIS EAY FOOTE, D. D., Moderator. 

Darwin R. James 226 Gates Ave. 

Russell W. McKee 695 Willoughby Ave. 

Henry M. Strong 680 Lafayette Ave. 

Frank R. Hibbard, Clerk .... 155 Tompkins Ave. 

Robert J. Culbert, Treasurer . . . 471 Lexington Ave. 

Ira Goddard 694 Willougbby Ave. 

Emmet F. Newton 419 Kosciusko St. 

William M. Rue 625 Putnam Ave. 

Solomon S. Giddings 396 Hart St. 

BOARD OF DEACONS. 

Frank Baldwin, M. D., President . . 691 Willoughby Ave. 
Frederick F. Purdy, Secretary and Treasurer . 811 Lafayette Ave. 

Spencer A. Jennings 663 Willoughby Ave. 

Robert Rule 268 Throop Ave. 

Charles P. Ellison 211 Lewis Ave. 

Herman F. Voss 14 Spencer Court. 

Lewis N. Foote, M. D. .... 523 Willoughby Ave. 

Charles L. Adams Ill Hart St. 

David S. Sherman 341 Vernon Ave. 

Francis I. Ketcham 121 Hart St. 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 

Darwin R. James, President 226 Gates Ave. 

Charles H. Henderson, Treasurer . . 596 Willoughby Ave. 

William Lamb, Secretary 218 Rodney St. 

Russell W. McKee 695 WiUoughby Ave. 

Ira Goddard 694 Willoughby Ave. 

Thomas J. Atkins 631 Willoughby Ave. 

John T. Barry 1263 Dean St. 

Frank Baldwin, M. D 691 Willoughby Ave. 

Herman F. Voss 14 Spencer Court. 



THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION. 

JUBILEE week had been anticipated for many 
months. It was finally ushered in by a rainy 
morning, which, however, did not materially inter- 
fere with the attendance at the opening service, and 
cleared before that service closed. Charming wea- 
ther continued during the entire week, without in- 
terruption, until the next Lord's day morning. It 
rained that morning, but the rain suddenly subsided 
just before the morning service, and the remainder 
of the closing day was bright and beautiful. So 
that in the matter of weather we were greatly 
favored. 

Besides, all the speakers who had consented to 
take part, without an exception, were able to fulfil 
their engagements. 

The special Sabbath services, with a service every 
night, save Saturday, between the Lord's days, made 
great demands upon the people, but the response 
was equal to the demand, and a good audience 
marked each occasion. Nearly every service was 
crowded. 

The special music which was furnished by a large 
chorus, chiefly composed of young people from the 
congregation, and from the Throop Avenue Mission, 
under the direction of Mr. H. M. C. Vedder, gave 
great and universal satisfaction. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



23 



Monday night the festival of the Throop Avenue 
Mission Sunday School was made especially attractive 
to the children by songs and recitations admirably 
rendered by themselves. 

The teachers had thoughtfully provided beautiful 
bouquets of American beauty roses for the Superin- 
tendent, Assistant Superintendent, and the Minister. 
These bouquets, in the number of roses they con- 
tained, indicated the years of service rendered by 
each one receiving them. Mr. F. R. Hibbard, the 
Superintendent of the Church School, made the 
presentation in a very happy manner, handing a 
bouquet of forty-six roses to Mr. Darwin R. James, 
a bouquet of forty-five roses to Mr. Henry M. Strong, 
and a bouquet of twenty-five roses to the Rev. 
Lewis Ray Foote. 

Tuesday night the children and youth of the 
Church School greatly enjoyed the unusual festive 
rollic which was accorded them. 

The fact that Mrs. Russell W. McKee was the 
only teacher who had been in continuous service in 
the school during its entire history of thirty-one 
years, was alluded to in a few appropriate words by 
Dr. Foote to whom her fellow-teachers had entrusted 
the pleasant privilege of presenting a beautiful 
bouquet of thirty-one roses, to mark her thirty-one 
years of faithful service. 

The Thursday night Re-Union and Reception was 
a very happy occasion. The Chapel beautifully 
decorated with flags and palms was thronged by 
the congregation, and the former friends and 
workers of the different schools. Grant Post of 



24 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



which Dr. Foote is a member sent a large delegation 
in full uniform. Several ministers of the Presbytery 
were also present. 

Towards the close of the evening the venerable and 
beloved Dr. John D. Wells, who was present at 
nearly all of the services, was conducted to the plat- 
form, accompanied by the pastor and his wife. Mr. 
Darwin R. James who forty-six years before was a 
youth in Dr. Wells's church and had at that time 
already commenced work in the Throop Avenue 
Mission, in a happy reminiscent speech, referred 
very touchingly to the affectionate interest Dr. 
Wells had taken in him as a young man, and also 
to the inspiring influence he had exercised over him 
in all those early years in moulding his character ; 
and then very happily alluded to the kind and self- 
sacrificing interest Dr. Wells had always taken in 
the School, as well as in the later development of 
the Church, and concluded his remarks, by placing 
in his hands a bouquet of forty-six American beauty 
roses to mark the period of time which had passed. 

He was followed by Mr. Russell W. McKee who 
also was in a reminiscent mood, as he referred to his 
going, something more than twenty-five years before, 
to obtain the present minister, to conduct a Sabbath 
Service in the Throop Avenue Church, which event 
had resulted in his being unanimously chosen the 
pastor of this Church, in which capacity he had con- 
tinued for twenty-five years. He referred in a very 
kind way to the punctuality, patience, perseverance, 
prayerfulness, tact, executive ability, and sympathy 
shown by the minister in the discharge of his work 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



25 



throughout these years, and concluded by placing in 
his hands, from the congregation, a beautiful silver 
loving cup which he assured him was filled with the 
love of all his people. 

After a few highly appreciative words to Mrs. 
Foote he placed in her hands a beautiful bouquet of 
twenty-five white roses. 

The cup, which has three handles, is eight inches 
high and six inches in diameter, with nine inches 
between the handles, and is inscribed on the three 
sides as follows : 

1. PRESENTED TO 

Rev. LEWIS RAY FOOTE, D. D. 

ON THE 

25th Anniversary 
of HIS 
Pastorate of 
Throop Ave. Presbyterian Church, 
Nov. 1st, 1898. 

2. We Salute You. 

3. 1873-1898. 

This part of the exercises was not on the printed 
programme. The minister in responding referred 
briefly to the fact that he was glad that such appre- 
ciative words could be uttered, and remarked that 
G-od always provided glad times sooner or later for 
those engaged in his service, and concluded by add- 
4 



26 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



ing that he had only tried to do his duty, that this 
was the highest aspiration of a Christian and a 
soldier, and that whatever had been done, that had 
been thought worthy of mention, had been entirely 
due to the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belonged 
all the glory. 

It was desired that all the men whom the Church 
had sent forth into the ministry should be represented 
in the services. It was not, however, possible for 
the Rev. Thomas Coyle, of Everett, Washington, or 
the Rev. L. William Hones, of Roscoe, to be present. 
The Rev. Louis O. Rotenbach, of Stony Point, and 
the Rev. John E. Fray, of the Duryea Presbyterian 
Church, however, were present, and participated in 
the services. 

It was very gratifying to all, but especially to the 
early workers, that the Rev. Robert G. Hutchins, 
D. D., and the Rev. Alexander Miller, who were con- 
nected with the Mission before the Church was or- 
ganized, could be present, and perform the parts 
which had been assigned to them. 

It was arranged to have the pastors of churches 
which had sprung from Dr. Wells's Church, including 
his own, take part in the services, to wit, Ainslie 
Street and Ross Street, and the churches which had 
sprung from Throop Avenue, to wit, Hopkins Street 
German and Mount Olivet, as well as our neighbors of 
the Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Congregational, 
and Reformed Churches. This plan was success- 
fully carried out. 

Rev. Henry J. van Dyke, D. D., gave the charge 
to the pastor when he was installed, and it was es- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



27 



pecially gratifying to have his son, Rev. Henry van 
Dyke, D.D., who was present with his father at the 
installation, twenty-five years before, present as one 
of the speakers on the first Lord's day evening. 

We were all very happy that Dr. Wells and Dr. 
Cuyler, the two beloved members of Presbytery to 
whom the Church has always been greatly attached, 
could be present to give the Church and its minister 
their congratulations, and final send off to their 
work for whatever period G-od may have allotted to 
them for the future. 

The Church and its minister record with the sin- 
cerest gratitude their profound indebtedness to all 
their friends who at such great personal pains and 
labor so ably and interestingly contributed to make 
the Jubilee so pleasing and profitable, and whose 
printed words they believe will continue to inspire 
to holy living and faithful working, long after the 
present generation shall have gone to its reward. 

L. R. F. 



A FEW EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 

The following are a few extracts selected from a 
large number of letters received from friends in re- 
sponse to the invitation to the Jubilee Celebration 
sent by the Session. 

The Rev. William H. Spencer, D. D., pastor of the 
First Baptist Church of Waterville, Me., who in 
1861 was the first Sergeant of Company C, 61st Regi- 
ment, N. Y. Volunteers, of which Dr. Foote was a 
private member, writes : 

When I used to make out the details of Co. C for guard 
duty, police duty, etc., I never used to think of detailing 
L. R. Foote for pastoral duty to the Throop Ave. Presby- 
terian Church. 

When we rushed through the woods and swamp up to 
the firing line at Fair Oaks, I did not think that the 
Throop Ave. Church, organized during that same month 
— June, 1862 — was lying low for one of our number, a 
tall young fellow in the company that suffered the worst 
that day of any in our regiment. 

I little suspected that the wound that knocked him out 
in that battle was to be the indirect means of his promo- 
tion to a captaincy in the militant host of our great Com- 
mander on high. 

There was good material in that little regiment, espe- 
cially in that company, and we have n't heard the last of 
them yet. 

28 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



29 



The Rev. Anson Judd Upson, D. D., LL. D., Chan- 
cellor of the University of the State of New York, 
who was one of Dr. Foote's college professors, 
writes : 

It is certainly most creditable that you can say that " the 
Church has contributed each year (for the past twenty-five 
years) $973 more than it has expended for its current ex- 
penses." The Lord has greatly blessed you, my friend, 
during your twenty-five years of faithful service. 

May His blessing continue for many years to come, is 
my prayer as I write. 

The Rev. William N. McHarg, D. D., another of 
his college professors, writes : 

I have watched your history with the liveliest satisfac- 
tion, and now rejoice greatly at your happy experience in 
the best and highest office that is accorded to man — the 
holy, benevolent, and Christ-like ministry of the gospel of 
grace and peace. While your blessed work and its excel- 
lent results does not allow you to indulge a carnal pride, 
it yields you a triumphant joy and self-gratulation such as 
Paul felt when he wrote, " I have fought a good fight : I 
have kept the faith," and by God's grace imparted the 
blessed faith to many precious souls, and built up a citadel 
of truth which will stand for many a year a Beacon of 
Light in its vicinity to guide successive generations on 
their voyage of life. 

The Rev. Edward C. Ray, D. D., Secretary of the 
Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges, a college 
friend, writes : 

Your course in the college, seminary, and pastorate, 
and the heart-satisfying success which has crowned your 



30 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



work through the divine blessing accompanying it, is ex- 
ceedingly delightful to your friends and to the friends of 
the Kingdom. The success has come because the divine 
blessing has found open channels to the world through 
your character and faithful labor. That consecration 
which fits us to be channels for the power of the Holy 
Spirit to reach man, is beautifully illustrated in your his- 
tory ; that consecration seems to me to consist of four 
things : First, use — doing all we can j second, continuity 

— keeping everlastingly at it ; third, sacrifice — cutting off 
what would interfere with the one aim ; fourth, prayer — 
faith asking, and obedience, lying open to heavenly 
influence. 

The Rev. Clarence Geddes, pastor of the Moriches 
Presbyterian Church, N. Y., a seminary classmate, 
and for some time room-mate, who has frequently 
preached in the Throop Avenue pulpit, and been in 
close touch with Dr. Foote, writes : 

Time has disclosed great and good things for you, and 
of all most worthy to receive, for the patient fidelity and 
unbounded faith and courage with which you have 
preached and labored. 

, You have had many good helpers to back you up — but 
you have proved you are worthy of backing. Best of 
all God has been underneath and round about, and in you 

— the grandest of all working forces — and He supple- 
menting all the human energies and forces, and inspiring 
them. Your silver trumpet has had marvellous power. 

I am reminded of those Old Testament words about an 
Old Testament warrior and his war horn, " And the Spirit 
of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet." 

Gideon and his war horn are distinguished. 

You have had a good horn to blow, and have blown it 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



31 



well, and the tribes have nobly responded. May it not 
lose its old power to arouse slumbering saints and awaken 
Godless souls. 

It would not be just in all this ripe harvesting that you 
have had — and golden sheaves by the hundred — to for- 
get one invaluable helper that has stood by your side and 
ministered with a patient love and fidelity that only your 
heart knoweth best, and that has greatly aided in winning 
your crown of deserving glory. Surely Mrs. Foote has 
been the real help -meet indeed in all these years of hon- 
orable service. 

I have not forgotten the wedding ,morning and the 
happy pair. No doubt you can remember better than I. 
But you have walked together and pulled together in the 
Lord's work — and those womanly hands and that noble 
heart of your choice have been for you a perpetual 
inspiration. 

The Rev. Henry A. Davenport, pastor of the First 
Presbyterian Church, Bridgeport, Conn., a seminary 
classmate, who has known of the Church through 
personal friends in the congregation, writes : 

Congratulations and blessings for the man whom God 
has made to stand like a great beacon-light in the face of 
darkness and tempest for twenty -five years! A Bible- 
founded, grace -trained, Spirit-nurtured, Heaven-pros- 
pered Church like yours puts all Christendom under 
obligation for its tonic influence. 

Such a splendid record and such a sensible program 
should bring you to high- water mark in Christian fellow- 
ship and holy joy and pure purpose for the future. 

May your bow long abide in strength ! 



The Rev. C. M. Des Islets, Ph. D., Professor of 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



Latin in the Western University of Pennsylvania, a 
seminary classmate, writes : 

I have often thought of you and rejoiced at your very 
successful work at the Throop Ave. Presbyterian Church. 
What a great privilege it is to be the means or the instru- 
ment in God's hand of building up his kingdom here on 
earth, where there is so much to offend as well as cheer ! 

The Rev. Professor Adam McClelland, D. D., of 
Dnbuqne German Theological Seminary, and for 
many years a fellow presbyter, writes : 

Very few flocks and shepherds have such reasons for 
raising their monuments of memorial saying, u Hitherto 
hath God been our helper." Few churches have so fully 
and continuously realized in their experience the precious 
promise, " My Spirit shall be among you." 

Truly the blessed Spirit has been with you in his con- 
victing, converting, unifying, sanctifying and comforting 
power. Yes, and as I can testify, in his heart- enlarging 
power. You have devised liberal things and so have 
realized the promise, " By liberal things shall ye stand." 

The Rev. J. Milton Greene, D. D., pastor of the Fort 
Dodge Presbyterian Church, Iowa, and a former fel- 
low presbyter, writes : 

My heart beats in liveliest sympathy with the work of 
God in the dear old city, and especially with such men of 
God as have figured in the upbuilding of your noble 
Church and its scions, notably good Mr. James, Let me 
add my most sincere congratulations and the earnest hope, 
which is also a sincere prayer, that God may long spare 
you for still larger and more glorious work in loyalty to 
His Word and faithfulness to His Church. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



33 



The Rev. Joseph Dunn Burrell, pastor of the Classon 
Ave. Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., writes : 

You started your work on no uncertain foundation, and 
it has endured and enlarged splendidly as time has gone 
on. I know from many personal expressions that your 
people love your Church and love you, and by their good 
works they show that they love the Lord Jesus Christ too. 

May the divine blessing that has been given so abun- 
dantly to Throop Avenue Church and its beloved pastor in 
the years that are gone, be continued in the years to come. 

The Rev. W. Courtland Robinson, pastor of the 
Potsdam Presbyterian Church, N. Y., writes : 

You have shown that great churches can be built up 
by straightforward, earnest preaching of the grand old 
evangelical truths, and quiet, persistent, loving pastoral 
work, not omitting a close fellowship with God. 

The Rev. Frank R. Symmes, pastor of the Tennent 
Presbyterian Church, N. J., writes : 

How plentiful, prosperous, and happy has been your 
long pastorate among your people ! What a pleasant peo- 
ple, what a beautiful temple, what days of grace have 
accompanied and crowned your labors ! Long may you 
live to continue the blessed work, and be favored with the 
Master's fellowship ! 

Old Tennent sends greetings to you and your people, 
and joins with you in your praises to the blessed Lord. 

The Rev. John J. Heischman, D. D., pastor of St. 
Peter's Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., writes : 

St. Peter's and I have rejoiced in beholding the rich 
blessings, both material and spiritual, which the Master 
5 



34 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



has so generously showered upon the flock under your 
leadership. We unite with you and your people in these 
glad festival days in rendering thanks to Him, from whom 
all blessings flow, and join in ascribing all honor and glory 
to His Holy Name. We invoke the gracious light of His 
Countenance upon you and your people for the future. 
May you be spared to your flock until the golden anniver- 
sary crowns your pastorate. May the simple and pure 
gospel of Jesus Christ cause your Church, more and more, 
to be a birthplace of eternal life for many souls, and may 
unity, love and peace ever be the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of the congregation over which you preside. 

The Rev. Josiah Strong, D. D., President of the 
League for Social Service, New York City, writes : 

I think you know that I have a special admiration for 
your Church and believe very confidently that if all the 
churches had followed its example in spirit and methods 
there would be no problem now as to " how to reach the 
masses." 

The Rev. Arthur J. Brown, D. D., Secretary of the 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, writes : 

I heartily congratulate you and the Throop Avenue 
Church on the Jubilee celebration. 

The friends of Foreign Missions everywhere are inter- 
ested in this notable event because your Church is one of 
the conspicuously intelligent and liberal foreign mission- 
ary churches of the denomination. May God bless you 
and your consecrated people during the coming years. 

The Rev. Wallace Radcliffe, D. D., pastor of the 
New York Ave. Presbyterian Church, Washington, 
D. C, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church, writes : 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



35 



I have been interested and impressed with the history 
of your work. You have evidently been ordained to a 
specific mission, and faithfully and successfully accom- 
plished it. 

I have been especially interested to see that it is the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Foote's pastorate. 

It is an unusual thing, in these days, for a man to hold 
his place so long and so successfully. It is complimentary 
both to the Church and to the pastor. 

May the silver rays be golden. May the week be full 
of good cheer, and the present only an exceedingly great 
and precious promise for all of the future. 



THE SILVER JUBILEE SERMON. 1 
Rev. LEWIS RAY FOOTE, D. D. 



I . . . SALUTE YOU IN THE LORD. 

Komans 16-22. 

PAUL was a great thinker, a great man, a great 
apostle, a foremost preacher, and he influenced 
the thought of the world more powerfully than any 
mere man who ever lived. His letters abound with 
personal salutations. This is true of the Epistle to 
the Romans, from which our text is taken, the last 
chapter of which contains hardly anything else, and 
it is true of the Epistles to the Corinthians, the 
Epistle to the Colossians, the Epistle to the Philip- 
pians, and of the Epistles to Timothy. Why, do you 
suppose, Paul saluted these groups of humble be- 
lievers, to whom he wrote, with so much particularity 
and emphasis % It is manifest that he saluted them 
because he was in perfect fellowship with them and 
their work. He saluted them because they believed 
with him in one God, and in Jesus Christ his Son as 
the Redeemer of the world, and in the Holy Spirit, 
under whose ministry the divine accomplishment in 
redemption was to be perfected; because they be- 
lieved with him that the life of the present bore the 
prof oundest relations to the eternities beyond. These 

1 See page 3. 

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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



37 



beliefs were central, controlling, and inspiring in 
him, and they were central, controlling, and inspir- 
ing in them. He was satisfied that their deepest 
convictions, drawn from the Holy Scriptures, were 
identical with his own. Christ was to them, as to 
him, the King, and the Redeemer, the Lover and 
Saviour of men. His salutations therefore went out 
to them, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, from a 
heart surcharged with these convictions, and aflame 
with love to God and man. He saluted them because 
he was in perfect fellowship with them, and their 
work was his, and his was theirs. He had been com- 
missioned as an apostle to the Gentile world, to make 
known the gospel of Jesus Christ, by which immor- 
tal souls were to be saved. He and they had the 
vision of Christ, and he and they had His Spirit within 
them. He and they had been intrusted with that 
gospel, to publish it abroad to earth's remotest 
bounds. They were both filled with enthusiasm for 
the work. It was for this reason he so generously 
saluted them. 

For a like reason, at the close of these twenty-five 
years, during which we have been so intimately 
associated together, as minister and people, in the 
sacred work of evangelizing the world, my beloved 
people, I salute you in the Lord. For our convic- 
tions, our beliefs, our privileges, our duties and ob- 
ligations, in the gospel, are similar to those of Paul 
and the early Church. There is therefore an im- 
mense amount of gospel principle and gospel power 
condensed in these salutations. While no mere min- 
ister of the gospel can emulate the great apostle, as 



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minister and people we have had a similar experience 
of grace, and we have been commissioned to preach, 
practise, and spread the same gospel, and in onr 
measure of ability and opportunity, have borne, and 
still bear, a responsibility and privilege, similar to 
those of Paul and the early Church. We are all 
bound together with the same bands of divine love, 
for the extension of his kingdom. In the measure 
in which human hearts have a common experience 
of saving, serving, and sanctifying grace, whether 
in gladness or sorrow, they flow together, and 

The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is like to that above. 

When a church therefore and her minister are fired 
by such common aspirations, and stirred to such 
holy endeavors as inspired the apostle Paul and those 
to whom he wrote, a salutation, in the Lord, is both 
natural and necessary. 

Paul's salutation signified affection, admiration, 
reverence, and commendation. This is the significa- 
tion put upon the text as used on this occasion. I 
am persuaded that there is far too small a recogni- 
tion made among men of the importance of a con- 
gregation of believers as a factor and a force for the 
advancement of Christ's kingdom. The Church as a 
body should realize that it is a very large factor in 
helping or hindering the work, in making or unmak- 
ing the minister. The heart of a genuine minister 
bears a keen sense of indebtedness towards a con- 
gregation which he has served for many years, for 
all of that peculiarly helpful ministry, by which they 
have helped him to be what God would have him to 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



39 



be, and to do what God would have him to do. The 
credit of any successful work is more apt to be given 
to him who is providentially placed at the head of it 
as leader, than to his flock, when in reality and under 
God the credit is equally due to the latter. The 
success of many a man in his life work is due, under 
God, to his wife, though her name never appears as 
a factor at all. Congregations make and unmake 
what are called successful pastors, and successful 
pastorates. I salute you as a congregation for those 
influences, both numerous and stimulating, toward 
all ministerial and manly endeavor, which have come 
through you and from you into your minister's life. 
These are the real goodness and bounty of God to 
his ministers. These influences are more precious 
and valuable to a minister than rubies, yea, than 
thousands of silver and gold. I recognize God's 
watchfulness and guidance over all my life. His 
ministries have been like the stars for multitude and 
unspeakably precious. But I count it as one of the 
greatest tokens of His favor, that He sent me here at 
the opening of my ministry. I am perfectly sure 
that God meant me to come here, and I am perfectly 
sure that He meant me to remain here until this day ; 
and I am very glad to say that, like Peter on the 
Mount of Transfiguration, I have felt it good to be 
here. I am profoundly grateful to Him for these 
provisions of His providence. I salute you as a 
Church, for all of your helpful ministries which have 
been among the most precious thoughts of His divine 
love, for the shaping of my character, and preparing 
me for His service. 
I should be untrue to my own convictions of duty, 



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and I doubt if as a congregation you would be willing 
to forgive me, if I did not here openly acknowledge 
the one most precious gift of God to me, next to my 
Saviour, whose help, and sympathy, and love, and 
zeal, and devotion, and cooperation, in all that has 
pertained to my life work among you, have been 
simply incalculably valuable to me. Mrs. Foote, I 
salute you in the Lord, with all my heart. 

Then, too, I salute this church upon this occasion, 
for its steadfast allegiance to the word of God, and 
to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. In 
these days, our eyes and our ears are altogether too 
familiar with assaults made upon the Bible, upon its 
integrity, upon its authority, upon its right to com- 
mand and control the minds of men. I salute you 
upon the fact that such assaults have found no hear- 
ing and no sympathy in this presence. You have 
not felt that your faith needed to be modified by the 
changes of civilization, or that it needed to be the 
subject of modification, as are the styles of architec- 
ture or of dress. To you, the things to be believed 
were once for all delivered to man, and the revelation 
of God is not the subject of revision. You have held 
to the old Book, the Book your fathers loved, and 
trusted, and rejoiced in j the Book which contains 
God's revelation to man, the Book of God's appoint- 
ment as the instrument of saving the world, and of 
lifting it back to God, from whence it has fallen and 
wandered away ; the Book which has been the source 
of your comfort in sorrow, of your light in the hour 
of darkness, and the source of all your aspirations 
and endeavors in the effort of holy living. I salute 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



41 



you upon the fact that your faith, founded on that 
blessed Book, has stood without a particle of waver- 
ing. And I salute you upon the fact that all the 
power and inspiration you have toward holy living, 
are traceable to that Book. I salute you upon all 
the power and inspiration you have drawn from that 
Book, to enable you to live rightly yourselves, and 
for all that power and inspiration which have ema- 
nated from that Book, which have prompted and 
inspired you to send forth to the world the same 
blessings which have enriched and made glad your 
own lives. 

I salute you upon your love and loyalty to the 
Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Saviour of men, 
and the Lord of heaven. As a Church you have 
always held the name of Jesus supreme in your 
thought, in your affection, and in your worship. As 
a Church you were founded in His name, and you 
have been consecrated to His service, and filled and 
inspired with the glory of His promise. Christ is in 
you the hope of glory, the chief est among ten thou- 
sand, the one altogether lovely. I would therefore 
in this connection, reverently and adoringly, salute 
Him, the great Head of this Church, who has gathered 
it, kept it, quickened it, and filled it, with His spirit 
and truth, unto this day. 

I salute you for the unique, generous, patient, 
persistent, faithful service which some of you have 
rendered for twenty-five years, which some of you 
have rendered for forty-six years. I most reverently 
salute that noble band of workers, who first began 
this enterprise in 1852, some of whom are now on 
6 



42 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



Foreign Missionary fields, some of whom are now in 
Europe, some of whom are in distant parts of our 
own land, and some of whom are in heaven. No 
one would be rash enough to call the service they 
rendered, perfect. But no one acquainted with the 
elements of self-sacrifice, which distinguished their 
service, would fail to see the beauty of God, in the 
patience and fidelity, they displayed. I salute all of 
them to-day, both on account of their work, and on 
account of the blessings and honor which God has put 
upon it. It is the greatest privilege and honor of 
my life, as the minister of this Church, to salute this 
noble band of workers on earth and in heaven. 

I salute the workers of the last quarter-century, as 
having contributed in their service such elements as 
God in His providence seemed to call for, while in 
some particulars they differed from those made in 
the earlier years. 

The Mount Olivet work, for example, started 
January 1, 1882, had in it an unusual element of 
self-sacrifice which has been crowned with the special 
favor of God. I salute all of that noble band of 
workmen, present and absent, in the Lord. 

The patience and fidelity of the officers and teachers 
of the Church Sabbath School, as well as the quality 
of their work, have come more directly under my im- 
mediate observation. Much of this work has been 
of the very finest character, and God has crowned it 
with the crown of His own beauty. 

No small part of the growth of the Church has 
been consequent upon the faithful work of the Sab- 
bath-school workers, who have done so much dur- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



43 



ing this quarter-century toward winning the 1,248 
persons who have been added to the roll of commu- 
nicants on confession of their faith, a large per- 
centage of whom have come from the Sabbath 
Schools. 

I salute all such faithful workers, in the Lord. 
I salute the present patient, faithful, unflagging 
workers, in both the Sabbath Schools of this Church. 
Only eternity will disclose the results of all your 
toil, but eternity will disclose it, and you will have 
your full reward there, for the Master Himself has 
said, that every one shall be rewarded as his work 
shall be. 

This Church has been blest with a large force of 
faithful women who have been, not only the great 
power in the Sabbath Schools, but who have effec- 
tively organized themselves for missionary work, 
and have effected the organization of mission bands 
amongst the young ladies, the young men, the boys, 
and the girls, and their educational and training 
efforts among these classes of young people along 
missionary lines have been simply incalculable for 
good. Besides, the Women's Weekly Prayer Meet- 
ing has been maintained for twenty-five years. I 
salute all these faithful women, in the Lord. 

The associations of the young people in every form 
in which they have been organized, have always been 
thoroughly alive and loyal to the spiritual interests 
which should prevail in such organizations. It is 
therefore with especial joy that I salute the Young 
People's Associations of Christian Endeavor. The 
young people of this congregation, have always been 



44 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



a source of such great strength to this Church, because 
they have been so early, and so largely won to Christ, 
and have been so loyally, and lovingly, and gladly, 
attached to His service. It is an occasion for espe- 
cial salutation, when young people find their joy in 
loyal service to Christ. The strength of our young 
men, and the beauty of our young women, lie in 
their relations to Christ and His work. By such 
instrumentalities, our sons have become as plants 
grown up in their youth, and our daughters have 
become as corner-stones, polished after the similitude 
of a palace. 

There has always been a large amount of work 
to be done by the Board of Deacons. I salute that 
Board of conscientious servants who have faithfully 
performed their delicate and difficult labor of love. 

In a Church like this, where so much money has 
been raised and expended for buildings, the Board 
of Trustees have had a great deal of important 
business to transact. I salute this Board upon the 
manner in which that business has been done, and 
upon the results of their labors, as shown in the 
beauty, comfort, and convenience of our buildings, 
as well as upon the prosperous condition of the 
financial interests of the church. 

The strength of a Presbyterian Church, lies in its 
Session. This Church has been blessed during its 
entire history with a body of elders who have been 
eminent for their ability and piety, loyal to their 
covenant vows, and pre-eminently faithful, and 
self-sacrificing in their service. The things which 
constitute our joy to-day are owing to the wisdom, 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



45 



patience, love, and untiring and self-sacrificing ser- 
vice of the elders of this Church. I salute them, both 
those on earth and those in heaven, in the Lord. 

This is a migratory age. Men and women come 
and go to-day as never before in the world's history. 
Nearly 2,100 members have been received into the 
membership of this church during the quarter- 
century now closing. There were about 135 on the 
roll, twenty-five years ago. Less than 250 have 
been translated to heaven, while there are a few 
more than 900 on the roll to-day. Hundreds, who 
found their spiritual life among us, as well as 
hundreds who came to us by letter from other 
churches, have gone elsewhere, and in numerous 
instances, as we have reason to know, have kept 
their spiritual life and service pitched to that key 
which has been recognized as the standard here. 
All such, whether present or absent, with something 
of Paul's gladness, I salute, in the Lord, to-day. 

I salute those of this Church present and absent, 
who in 1862, inaugurated the plans for monthly 
Missionary Offerings, which have been followed 
without interruption or intermission for thirty-six 
years. I salute the mover 1 of that resolution with 
whom the idea originated, who was at the time only 
twenty-one years of age. I salute the entire Church 
on earth and in heaven, who have regularly, for 
longer or shorter periods, made conscience of their 
Offerings to the Lord Jesus Christ, for Home and 
Foreign Missions, as well as for all other work for 
Christ. 

1 Mr. Robert Henderson. 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



I salute you as a Church upon the total funds 
contributed, by yon, during these twenty-five years. 
They amount to $389,525, being an annual average 
sum of $15,581. $82,000 have been contributed for 
the two enlargements of the Chapel, and for the 
erection of this edifice. $141,623 have been con- 
tributed for current expenses, an annual average 
sum of $5,605. $165,902 have been contributed for 
benevolence, an annual average sum of $6,638. I 
salute you upon the facts contained in these figures. 
I salute you upon the fact that you have contributed 
for benevolence each year $973 more than you have 
expended for current expenses. I salute you upon 
the fact that in twenty-five years you have not only 
contributed for benevolence as much as you have 
used on your own current church expenses, but 
that you have contributed $24,279, more. 

I salute you as a Church, upon these facts, and I 
salute you upon the fact that during these years 
of large gifts for buildings, the sum total of money 
contributed for benevolence steadily rose, and not 
one of the regular objects of benevolence, recom- 
mended by our General Assembly, has ever been 
laid aside, neither has an offering ever been inter- 
mitted, on account of local demands upon our funds. 

I salute you especially upon your response to the 
demands of Church Extension in our Presbytery. 
For two years this Church has headed the roll of 
contributing Churches to this work, and it has not 
failed to make its proportionate offering to it for 
fourteen years. You aided Bedford Church a little 
during the last year and a half, and what do you 
think Bedford did last Sabbath ? She actually sub- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



47 



scribed over $1,000 to support a foreign missionary. 
I salute you, dear brethren, on earth and in heaven, 
who responded to that call one and a half years ago 
to aid Bedford Church, and I salute Bedford for 
this act of benevolence, with all my heart. 

I salute all of you who have responded conscien- 
tiously to all the demands God has made upon you 
for His cause, both at home and abroad. 

I salute you as a Church, furthermore, upon the 
fact that you were willing to worship in a plain 
Chapel with bare floors, except in the aisles, up to 
1890, and that for nearly the same length of time 
you were content with a cabinet organ to lead your 
worship of song, until in the providence of God, you 
were able to arise and build this beautiful and 
commodious edifice, and pay for it. I salute you 
upon the fact that when you dedicated this edifice to 
the Lord on Easter Sunday, 1893, it was paid for, 
and that no mortgage ever rested upon it. I salute 
you upon the fact that your entire church prop- 
erty is paid for and that your current expense bills 
are paid up to date. And I salute you upon the 
fact that so largely, more largely than ever before 
in your history, the entire church membership makes 
conscience of all financial obligations for Christ and 
his cause. 

This Church began in self-denying and generous 
service. It has gone on in such service. I salute 
you as a Church upon the fact that generous co- 
operation, in local and foreign proclamation of the 
gospel, is felt to be both a privilege and a duty, 
and I trust more of a privilege than a duty. 

And I salute you upon the fact that emphasis 



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has been here kept, upon the gospel spoken, as the 
power by which, and through which, not only the 
salvation of men shall be secured, but the means 
by which, and through which, all the elements of 
a complex civilization shall be advanced. So-called 
institutional methods may be good in some of their 
phases and in some places, but nothing can ever 
take the place of the gospel anywhere ; and in no 
form, we believe, is the gospel more likely to be 
received than when it is spoken in love. Nothing 
will save a lost world but the pure gospel spoken 
from loving and Christ-like hearts, and it is our 
belief that the gospel when it is received, will pro- 
duce in its recipients all the institutions which they 
may require for their comfort and development. 

In an age so largely given to pleasure, I salute you 
as a Church, that you have never been disposed to 
stand merely or largely for entertainment and social 
enjoyment : that in an age of great intellectual and 
scientific advancement you have never been disposed 
to allow purely scientific truth or philosophical or 
literary attractions to supplant the pure gospel, but 
that as a Church you have stood first and fore- 
most for the pure gospel, and for such generous 
Christian service as lay in your power. And I 
challenge all such individuals and households, as 
have stood squarely and earnestly for this gospel, 
through the years, many or few, in number, to stand 
forth and make it known, if God has not kept his 
promise that such should not want any good thing. 

I salute you as a Church in the Lord, for you are 
my "glory" and " crown of rejoicing." 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



49 



I salute you upon the peace and harmony which 
have prevailed among you during these twenty-five 
years, and upon the absence of discord and roots of 
bitterness, and upon the explanation of this state of 
things, which it is not difficult to find, in the fact 
that you have had plenty of other and more remu- 
nerative occupation, and that the grace of God has 
been furnished to you in such abundance, as to save 
you from such spiritual disaster. You have been 
the temple of the Holy Spirit, and your hands have 
been so full of service, and you have been so im- 
pelled and sustained in the service by the power of 
the Holy Spirit, that your hearts have been free 
from the mud and mire of clamor and discord. I 
salute you upon the fact that the running brook 
of your life has so sparkled in the divine sunlight of 
service, as to give you the joy of serving, rather 
than the bitterness of grumbling. 

In saluting you as a Church, as I do to-day in 
the Lord, at the close of this quarter- century, I 
salute admiringly, reverently, affectionately, not the 
living alone, but also in loving memory I salute 
those who have been borne from us up to the higher 
sphere, leaving upon us their benediction, and the 
precious memory of their character, and the glad as- 
surance that they must be informed of our life and 
progress, and must utter in that Presence, where 
they abide, their earnest prayer on our behalf. Some 
of you know full well that the happiest households 
are not those which have been unvisited by the pale 
messenger we call Death. Some of you well know 
that there is nothing that so unites a household as 
7 



50 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



the removal of one of its members to the realms 
above, And what is true of households is true of 
churches, which are only a combination of house- 
holds. 

I joyfully salute the little children, the boys and 
the girls, the young men and the maidens, the men 
and the women in middle life, the venerable and the 
aged who have gone from us, a great cloud of wit- 
nesses, who encompass us to-day. I salute the 
Church as here gathered, but I salute the Church on 
high, still one with us, whose faith is vision and 
whose song is made perfect, and who in their glori- 
ous life remember us, and rejoice with us, and pray 
for our fidelity and prosperity. 

Need I remind you, beloved, that my salutation to 
you contains love, reverence, admiration, and sincere 
joy? 

It is a rare privilege we all enjoy that we have 
with us to-day him from whose flock the early 
workers in this enterprise went forth. On behalf of 
this congregation, whose first members were by you, 
dear Dr. Wells, surrendered for its formation at the 
recognized command of your Master, though not 
without tears in your household, as you have pre- 
viously in this presence testified, I most affection- 
ately salute you in the Lord, rejoicing in all you 
have been by God's grace to this Church, from its 
foundation, and rejoicing that your early sacrifice 
is your present joy. 

I salute this Church to-day lovingly, admiringly, 
reverently. And I would remind you that saluta- 
tion implies not merely approval and commenda- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



51 



tion, but increase of petition, hope, and desire, that 
all the promise of its past may be fulfilled in its 
future. This will require, under God, that you be 
mightily potential for the magnificent task which 
confronts you in coming days. You must be leal, 
loyal, loving, active, aggressive, energetic, deter- 
mined, and persistent, in your service for Christ, 
and whereunto you have already attained you must, 
by all means, walk by the same rule, and mind the 
same thing. 

Let every one of us adopt the motto of Scotland's 
great preacher, 

I five for those that love me, 
For those that know me true ; 

For the heaven that smiles above me, 
And awaits my coming, too : 

For the cause that needs assistance, 

For the wrong that needs resistance, 

For the future in the distance, 
For the good that I can do. 



Our Joyful Song. 



wm. n. weeks, Jb» 




U Ring out, O liap • py clnT- dren, Ring out, our sweet-est 

2T. All hon -or to the foun-ders, WhowalchM our school with care, 

8. O'er re - gions dark and lone-ly, Fipm this dear home so bright, 

4. God keep us ev - er faith -ful, To His di-vine com-niand, 




And siusc to our Cro - a ~ tor, A song of joy - ful praise. 

And look -tog up to Je - sns, They sought His aid in pray'r. 

How ma « ny souls liav© can-ried, The ianVp of f>03 - pel light. 

And help us thro' the Spir - it, For truth and right to stand. 




We come to hail with glad - nesst The school each heart n; 
He heard tl.eirearn-est plead -ing. And lol to * day ap - pears! 
In thought they now are with' ns, They bless with grate-ful tears, 
God spare our no - ble guardians, Whose names each heart re - Veres, 




Our in'13 sion school that num-bers, 
Our mis-sion school that nam bers, 
Our mis sion school that num-bers, 
And may they live to num-ber, 



Its six and for - ty 

Its six and for - ty 

Its six and for - ty 

Twice six and for - ty 



years, 
years, 
years, 
years. 





tri — 














Ring out. hap - |j 


y chil - dren, Ring o 


jt, our sweet-e 
*' P - f f 


st fays; 




— S 


— t 




— — ? — 1 










Dedicated to Mr. Henry M. Strong. 
1 See page 4. 



THE CHARACTER OF OUR KING. 1 



Rev. LOUIS O. ROTENBACH. 

I VENTURE to remark that there is n't another 
school that can sing more heartily and joyously 
than you, for as we sat here upon the platform and 
listened while you swung through the hymn — " We 
Are Volunteers," it rolled up a majestic chorus. 
Furthermore, I doubt whether there exists another 
school that can show an array of faces brighter and 
more attentive than yours. You ? re an inspiration 
to any one whose privilege it is to address you. 

Permit me to bring to you the cordial greeting 
and congratulation of the Church and Sabbath 
School of Stony Point, N. Y. We rejoice together 
with you upon this happy occasion, your day and 
week of Jubilee. 

Methinks, not one of that brave and devoted band 
of young people, who, years ago, made their way 
across the swamp that then was, through winter and 
summer, in order to carry on the work of the Throop 
Avenue Mission Sabbath School — methinks, not one 
of them probably ever suspected the proportions and 
importance to which that work would grow, and the 
blessing and power God would bestow. 



1 See page 4. 

53 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



We congratulate the Throop Avenue Mission upon 
her glorious work. "We salute your superintendent, 
Mr. J ames, who for more than forty years has faith- 
fully guided the work. We greet your corps of 
workers who have efficiently stood by the work, and 
we rejoice that you have been privileged to have this 
devoted servant of God — Dr. Foote — for twenty- 
five years, as pastor. 

Let me ask, why was this work of the Throop 
Avenue Mission undertaken? Why was it carried 
on so perseveringly and successfully? It was under- 
taken and carried on in honor of the Great Master, 
Jesus Christ, our King. That brings me to the sub- 
ject which has been assigned me — "The Character 
of Our King." 

What is a king ? He is the honored and crowned 
ruler of a kingdom. As such he is an important 
personage, he enjoys distinctive honors and exercises 
great power. There have been a great many kings 
in the history of the world. They differed from one 
another. One had one trait — another, another. One 
was peculiar in one way, and another in another 
way. These traits and peculiarities made up the 
characteristics — yes, the distinguishing character 
of each king. 

Now, in order to speak of the character of "Our 
King " we must touch upon those traits in his life 
that distinguish him from all other kings. 

First then, "Our King" was marked by Humility. 
The history of ordinary kings is a record of pomp 
and show, of splendor and pageantry. This you 
could see for yourselves in the report of the crown- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



55 



ing of the Kaiser in Germany, and that of the Czar 
in Russia. 

"Our King" was born where? In a Royal Palace? 
He was cradled in a manger! His home was that of 
the humble peasant. When He went forth to teach, 
He had not where to lay His head. Did gold-be- 
spangled retainers surround Him ? A band of Gali- 
lean fishermen were His followers! Jerusalem was 
anxiously looking for a king. When He came, did 
she fling wide open her gates, and give Him a wel- 
come ? Kingly splendor and regal power was what 
Jerusalem was looking for. She waited for one who 
by force of arms would put Rome under her feet. 
When this humble Galilean came she crowned Him — 
but it was with thorns ; the Royal Purple she flung 
over His shoulders, but it was taken from the rub- 
bish heap. A Sceptre was placed in His hand — but 
it was a broken reed of derision and mockery. 

Yes, "Our King" is characterized, not by the 
boastful vanity of a Nebuchadnezzar, but by the 
Humility of the Christ of God. 

Then again, "Our King" is characterized by Love 
and Sympathy. 

You remember studying in your Sabbath-school 
lessons of the Widow of Nain. Through the gate- 
way of that city we saw coming a procession — a 
number of young men were carrying out to burial 
the body of one of their companions. Right behind, 
bowed in sorrow, with her white face tear-stained, 
came the dead man's mother. Her husband was 
dead. One by one her relatives had died, until this 
boy alone was left as her help and comfort in old 



56 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



age, and death has ruthlessly taken him. Oh, how 
burdened with grief is her heart, and we grow sad 
as we look upon her. 

But we are not the only ones who see her and feel 
for her. " Our King," Jesus, is there. He, too, feels 
her sorrow. He stops the burial party, speaks to 
the dead. He rises to life, and Jesus gives him back 
to his mother. Oh, the joy that is hers ! 

You remember, too, in your study, poor " blind 
Bartimeus" sitting by the way — when he cried, Jesus 
heard him and gave him sight. Then the " Ten 
Lepers " that cried to Him for help. He healed them ! 
And when the mothers were bringing their little 
children to Him, his disciples tried to push them 
back, but He said, " Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
Kingdom of Heaven.' 7 

Yes, great Love and deep Sympathy, these char- 
acterize " Our King." None are so bad, so poor, so 
young, but that He is ready to wipe away their tears 
and to bless them. 

" Our King 11 is also a Self- Sacrificing King. How 
different is He in this from all other kings who seem 
only to seek their own ! 

Years ago, when Louis XIV and Louis XV were 
the kings of France, that country was in a very bad 
condition. The kings and the nobles thought that 
the people were for them to use. So they got out of 
them all they could. They taxed them, ground 
them down so they themselves might have plenty. 
Things got so bad that it was n't uncommon to find 
the bodies of women and children at the roadsides 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



57 



and in the woods who had starved to death. Those 
kings sacrificed the people for themselves. " Our 
King" sacrificed Himself for us. He left His glorious 
home in Heaven, came down upon a sinful earth, 
lived our common experience from cradle to grave, 
suffered and finally gave His life upon the cross for 
you and for me, that we might be redeemed and our 
life be filled with joy. Nothing was too good for 
Him to give, not even His life ! 

Then again, " Our King" is a Mighty and Eternal 
King. You who study history know that it records 
the defeat and overthrow of king after king. The 
record of " Our King " is a list of victories and tri- 
umphs not simply for a few years, but century after 
century. He is marching triumphantly through the 
earth. The Roman bowed before Him, the Anglo- 
Saxon yielded to Him, the Mongolian is hesitating 
now. The time is surely coming when Heaven will 
open once again, and He shall descend to ascend His 
throne to reign, not a few years as an earthly king, 
but to reign for ever and ever as King of kings and 
Lord of lords. 

All nations of earth and their kings will be gath- 
ered to see Him. You and I will be there. Then, if 
we have had faith in Him, and have been obedient 
to Him, with great joy will we greet Him as " Our 
King/ 7 and He will say to us, " Come, ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world." 



8 



THE JOY OF THE CHILDREN OF 
THE KING. 1 



Rev. ARNOLD W. FISMER. 

I AM happy to be with you this afternoon. When- 
ever my friends are having a good time, I love 
to be present. And what a glorious good time you 
are having ! Why, you may wear your best Sunday 
clothes every day this week and celebrate jubilee 
upon jubilee to your hearts' content. 

Now, I have come here just for a short half hour 
to congratulate you upon three joyful facts : 

First of all, I want to congratulate you upon the 
fact that our dear Dr. Foote has been your pastor 
for twenty-five blessed years. There is a peculiar 
relationship between Dr. Foote and myself. This 
church is the mother of my church on Hopkins 
Street ; so I must be Dr. Foote's son-in-law and he 
is my kindly father-in-law. Ah, yes, a good father 
in the Lord he has been to you and to me, to all of 
us, for twenty-five long years. Let us all love him 
as children love a father. Be very good and kind 
to him. Don't forget him in your prayers. Ask 
Jesus to bless him and keep him with us another 
twenty-five years. 

1 See page 4. 

58 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



59 



In the second place I want to congratulate you 
upon the fact that to-day you are forty-six years old. 
Forty-six long years ago our Mr. James started this 
school, and, thank God, here he is to-day, every bit 
as charming and as much, in love with his Sunday 
School as he was half a century ago. And his Sun- 
day School ? Why it is just as young and even better 
looking than it was then, although it is now old 
enough to be grandmother. Indeed, this school has 
become a blessed grandmother : our Hopkins Street 
Church is her grandchild. That is the reason I came 
here to rejoice with you. You know a grandchild 
is always invited to a grandma's birthday party. 

And now let me congratulate you upon a third 
glorious fact, suggested by the subject on which I 
am to speak to you for a little while : you are, all 
of you, sons and daughters of a great king. What 
is this bright thing I hold in my hand f " A crystal." 
Eight ! But tell me now to what kingdom this 
crystal belongs. " To the mineral kingdom." And 
to what kingdom do these flowers belong? "To 
the vegetable kingdom." And to what kingdom 
does this little child belong? "To the heavenly 
kingdom." Yes, indeed, the crystal belongs to the 
mineral kingdom, the flowers to the vegetable king- 
dom, but you are of the kingdom of heaven. 

A great many years ago, a great and mighty king 
sent his son on an important mission into a distant 
foreign country. The son left his golden crown, 
together with all the insignia of royalty, in his 
father's house and chose to travel incognito, as an 
ordinary citizen. 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



But ah, the people very soon recognized in him the 
royal features and noble characteristics of a king, 
and everywhere they gathered round him in great 
multitudes. The police officers often had a hard 
time scattering the crowds and clearing the way. 
And when, one day, anxious mothers with little chil- 
dren in their arms, crowded round him, why, even 
his closest followers barricaded the way, crying out 
to the frightened mothers : " Halt, stand back there, 
pass on, you cannot speak to the king, he will not 
stop on the street to stoop to a child ! " But when 
the king heard this he cried out aloud: " Don't forbid 
those children to come unto me ! Let them come 
one and all ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' 7 
You know this kindly king • it is Jesus, the king of 
glory, about whom Mr. Eotenbach spoke to us. 

This great king was the first king who showed a 
genuine sympathy for childhood. 

King Pharaoh of Egypt and king Herod of Jeru- 
salem ordered a wholesale slaughter of children. 

The wise Greek philosopher Plato said : " Send the 
children away to the nursery," but Jesus said: "Bring 
them to me, I will bless them, I will care for them, 
even as a father careth for his children." 

President and Mrs. McKinley have no children of 
their own. Now, suppose that this afternoon there 
should come into this audience-room, down the centre 
aisle, the President himself, and say to a boy and a 
girl having neither father, mother, nor home: "I 
will be your father, you shall be my son and you 
shall be my daughter." Don't you think that boy 
and that girl would be made very happy ? 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



61 



Now, boys and girls, this very thing is really being 
fulfilled in a much grander sense in your own case. 
Jesus, the King of kings, is among you this after- 
noon, and he tells every boy and every girl here 
present : u I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall 
be my sons and daughters." (2 Cor. 6 : 18.) So you 
see that it is my pleasure to talk this afternoon to 
sons and daughters of the King of kings. Just 
think how rich you are ! What precious privileges, 
what unusual advantages you enjoy ! A few years 
ago I saw in the city of Berlin the children of the Em- 
peror of Germany. They were out driving. The 
oldest, the Crown Prince, was riding a fine Asiatic 
pony ; the others were seated in a brand-new sort of 
a baby tallyho pleasure-coach, with an escort of 
uniformed guards on horseback following behind. 
That was a splendid little parade. Fairy-like they 
passed on in glitter and grandeur amongst the smiles 
and cheers of a gazing crowd ; and I said to myself : 
Surely, the youngsters of royalty have many privi- 
leges and pleasures which are denied ordinary mor- 
tals. But are we going to envy them ? No, not by 
any means ! We 're free-born American boys and 
girls, and we are, all of us, children of the King of 
kings, and as such have greater pleasures and grander 
enjoyments by far than any mortal king's children 
on the face of the earth. 

Let me call your attention to just a few of them. 

I. There are the sacred joys of the Christian home. 
It was J esus that made home, sweet home, so sweet 
to us, a resort of love, of joy, of peace and plenty; 
* where, loving and beloved, parents and children 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



mingle in bliss." I would n't sell, for all the money 
a king could give me, the memory of the home of 
my childhood. That memory is the bright halo 
sacredly inclosing my whole life ; it is the fire-line of 
circumvallation that keeps the enemy out. Even 
now, when the tempter comes to annoy me, I have 
a vision: I see in a Western home a young boy 
kneeling at his mother's side. The mother weeps 
and prays j the boy arises, grave and moved ; with 
his inmost being changed, he starts out to try to live 
a noble, useful life. Ah, that picture I would n't 
give up for Raphael's grandest oil-painting ! 

And then there is that other scene of home I shall 
never forget : One Sunday morning my dear father, 
who is now in heaven, took both my hands, looked 
me square in the face and down into my heart, and 
said : " Arnold, don't you think it ? s time to give 
yourself to Jesus % " It was then that I made up my 
mind to prove that I loved Jesus by serving him all 
my life. 

I thank Jesus to-day for the lasting sacred joys of 
home. And I want you to do so likewise. Boys 
and girls, remember it was Jesus that elevated and 
beautified your home. Always appreciate and love 
your home as a gift of Jesus, and let it ever be to 
you the dearest place on earth. 

II. Next to home the greatest gift of King Jesus 
to children is the Sunday School. 

This day especially should we rejoice that Jesus 
gave us the Sunday School. Not all boys and 
girls have been so fortunate. In the little town in 
Illinois where I was born there was none. My fa- 



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63 



ther started the first Sunday School there just about 
the time this church was being organized ; and hav- 
ing to preach every second Sunday at another place, 
and there beiDg no Mr. James in town, my mother 
was made superintendent of that school. 

One Sunday she told us the story about the bad 
king Ahab and the good king Joash. In holy wrath 
I hurried home and scratched away King Ahab's 
crown in our illustrated Family Bible. The punish- 
ment I bore with Stoic resignation. One thing only 
I regretted: by mistake I had taken off the good 
king's crown instead of Ahab's. 

Take warning, boys and girls, don't wreak out 
vengeance rashly, lest you get hold of the wrong 
man's crown. But whatever you do, love your Sun- 
day School, stick to it so long as you live. If you 
were as old as Methuselah, whose days were 969 
years, you are not too old; if you were as big as 
Goliath, you are not too big; and if you were as wise 
as Solomon, you are not too wise, to go to Sunday 
School. 

Why, look at Mr. James ! For forty-six years he 
comes to this one Sunday School, and by no means 
does he intend quitting it. It 's the Sunday School 
that keeps him so young and so happy. I wish 
every one of you would follow his example, love the 
Sunday-school work as he does, and later on become 
teachers and superintendents, starting more Sunday 
Schools like this one, which, indeed, is a thing of 
beauty and a joy forever. For nearly fifty years it 
has stood, a bright and shining light, pouring out 
streams of blessings into the hearts and homes of 



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thousands and tens of thousands of parents and 
children and children's children. 

It is, indeed, a living fountain of God, full of fresh 
water, and every faithful scholar and teacher is " like 
a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf shall not wither; 
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." 

III. This suggests to us another of the unspeaka- 
ble joys we have in Jesus : we are the King's soldiers. 

Jesus is our King ; we are his soldiers ; the Sunday 
School is the armory where the King's young soldiers 
are drilled and equipped to conquer this whole world 
for the King of kings. For every man he has a plan. 
There is some field to conquer for every boy and 
every girl. 

Many of you boys, I know, were sorry you were 
not big enough to go down to Cuba and become 
heroes like Hobson and Roosevelt and Schley. But 
you can do greater things for King Jesus. 

I would rather do the simplest deed of kindness 
than sink the Spanish fleet, as did Dewey at Manila 
and Schley and Sampson at Santiago. I would 
rather give to a poor and thirsty soul a cup of cool 
water and a word of comfort than to reap the blood- 
dipped glory of Roosevelt and Shafter and Miles. 

That is what Jesus would have me do, and that is 
my joy, my delight, and my very great reward. 

IV. But there is still a greater joy. Jesus himself 
tells us not to rejoice on account of wonderful deeds 
accomplished; but rather to rejoice because our 
names are written in heaven. 

The best book in the world is the Bible, but the 



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65 



biggest book in the world is the Register used at the 
Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In this book 
every visitor to the World's Fair was permitted to 
write his name. But there is a book in heaven, 
called the Book of Life, in which all the millions and 
millions of people who believe in the Lord J esus and 
love him will have their names written. Every one 
of these names will be very dear to Jesus for ever 
and ever. In the very last book of the Bible he says : 
"I will not blot out his name out of the Book of 
Life"; and he has promised to make all his own 
kings and priests unto G-od. So you see it is really 
a greater pleasure to have your name in the Book of 
Life in heaven, than to be some king or queen on 
earth. Is your name written there ? If it is, there 
are a thousand untold joys awaiting you. Let me 
tell you of just a single one. 

You will wear crowns like kings and queens. Not 
like this one, of course (placing a paper crown on his 
head), but crowns every bit as precious as that of 
the Queen of England. 

In Holland a few weeks ago a young girl, Wil- 
helmina, was crowned Queen of Holland. She is 
the only girl in the whole kingdom that has the 
right to wear a crown. But up there in the kingdom 
of heaven every one of you girls may have this 
pleasure. 

In the kingdom of Spain there is but one petted 
boy, Alfonso, who expects, some day, to be crowned 
king of Spain. But in the kingdom of heaven 
every one of you boys shall have a crown of your 
own. 
9 



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It is promised you in the last book of the Bible 
on one condition : " Be thou faithful unto death, and 
I will give thee a crown of life." This means, be 
faithful to Jesus, faithful to father and mother, 
faithful to your Sunday School and church, faithful 
in all things. If you be that, the promise will surely 
be fulfilled, the King of kings will crown you with 
the crown of life and will say to you: "Good and 
faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 



THE CHARACTER OF OUE KINO. 1 



Rev. WM. J. HUTCHINS. 

I COULD wish that my theme might be treated by 
your pastor, whose character has so assimilated 
to the character of his King, and whose twenty-five 
years of service among us have helped hundreds to 
an appreciation, and at least a partial realization, of 
the character of the Christ. 

In our Sabbath-school lesson to-day, the prophet 
foretells the Messiah's kingdom. It is a sublime 
ideal — a kingdom that spreads from shore to shore, 
a kingdom from which the knowledge of Jehovah 
banishes all that pains and stings, a kingdom in which 
wickedness shall be stamped out, in which justice 
shall be done to the meek, and righteousness wrought 
out for the poor. 

But the prophet loves to linger upon the character 
of Him who is to rule this coming kingdom. Je- 
hovah's spirit shall rest upon Him, Jehovah's will 
He shall be quick to seek. His girdle shall be 
righteousness and faithfulness. His name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Ever- 
lasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

1 See page 5. 

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The prophet's ideal of King and Kingdom has 
been marvelously realized in the Son of God and in 
the Kingdom of G-od, which He proclaimed. 

But from the prophet's characterization of the 
coming King, I should like to turn to the King's 
self-characterization, which is found in its most per- 
fect form in the tenth chapter of John's gospel. And 
there we find Isaiah's sketch filled in, glorified, trans- 
figured. It is Jesus that speaks. " He that entereth 
in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. He 
calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. 
When he hath put all forth, he goeth before them 
and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 
I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd layeth 
down his life for the sheep." 

Thus does Christ fill in, glorify, transfigure the 
prophet's sketch. He bids us now think of Him not 
merely as a king, but as a shepherd, not merely as a 
judge, but as a personal guide, not merely as a de- 
stroyer, but as a suffering Saviour. 

Our King then thinks of Himself as of a shepherd, 
and He thinks of us as His sheep. It is not the first 
or the last time that the figure of the shepherd comes 
to the Saviour's lips. He had compassion on the 
multitude as sheep not having a shepherd. In the 
15th of Luke, in that matchless defense of His love 
and care for publicans and sinners, He uses of Him- 
self the same figure of the shepherd, who in compas- 
sion seeks for the one sheep that has gone astray. 
In His last instructions to Peter He bids him as an 
under-shepherd : " Feed my lambs." 

The full force of the figure can scarcely be appre- 



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69 



ciated by us westerners. A writer reminds us that 
while with us sheep are often left to themselves, in 
the East a flock of sheep is seldom without its shep- 
herd. " In such a landscape as Judeea, where a day's 
pasture is scattered over an unf enced tract of coun- 
try, covered with delusive paths, still frequented by 
wild beasts and rolling off into the desert, the man 
and his character are indispensable. On some high 
moor, across which at night the hyenas howl, when 
you meet him, sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, 
armed, leaning on his staff, and looking out over his 
scattered sheep, every one of them on his heart, you 
understand why the shepherd of Judaea sprang to 
the front in his people's history, why they gave his 
name to their king, why Christ took him as the type 
of self-sacrifice." 

Christ thinks of Himself as the shepherd, of us as 
His sheep. How great is the comfort in the thought ! 
The sheep is one of the most defenseless of animals. 
It has not the speed of the deer, the endurance of the 
camel, the brain of the dog. It ? s just a poor, silly 
sheep. And we are poor, silly sheep, going astray, 
turning every one to his own way. Christ, I can- 
not defend myself. Thou must be my defense. I 
cannot think for myself. Thou must think for me. 
I cannot even plan for myself. I dare not choose 
my lot. Choose Thou for me, my Lord. And Christ 
accepts the responsibility we throw upon Him. " I 
am the good shepherd." 

Our King is a shepherd. As a shepherd, He calleth 
His own sheep by name. Christ individualizes His 
followers. He thinks not of Christendom, but of 



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Christians, not of churches, but of church-members, 
not of presbyteries, but of Presbyterians. He does 
not think of us as so many head of sheep. I don't 
suppose we shall ever know the full meaning of His 
words, until we meet our King in heaven, until there 
as a shepherd, He calleth us each by name. Yet we 
can in a measure understand His words even now. 
I have recently seen two pictures, which you have 
doubtless seen. One represents President McKinley 
standing by, while his Secretary of State signs the 
peace protocol which ends a terrible war, which de- 
cides the fate of at least two islands, and which pre- 
pares the way, we trust, for the liberation of ten 
millions of people. The other picture represents the 
President shaking hands with one of the sick soldiers 
at Camp Wikoff, and from these pictures I get a 
faint far-away idea of what it means, when I read 
that He, in whom all things were created, in whom 
all things consist, the King of kings, is as well the 
good shepherd, who calls each of His sheep by name. 

Never a trial, that He is not there, 
Never a burden that He does not bear, 
Never a sorrow that He does not share, 
Moment by moment, I 'm under His care. 

Does it seem incredible? Remember He who feeds 
the five thousand, cares for the life of a wee little 
girl in Capernaum, and commands that " something 
be given her to eat." Remember that He who walks 
upon the waves of Gennesaret and stills their tumult, 
is the One who loves to clasp a little babe in His 



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71 



arms, and give it His blessing. Yes, He calleth His 
own sheep by name. 

Not only does our King think of Himself as the 
shepherd, who calls each of His sheep by name : He 
is a shepherd, who goeth before His sheep. If this 
be true, two things are evident. Christ does not 
drive His sheep. Christ knows all about the way His 
sheep are to take. 

Our Shepherd does not drive His sheep. The 
Christian life is not inspired by the Thou shalts and 
the Thou shalt nots, each command a stinging lash. 
How often we think of Christ as the child of the 
slums thinks of his father, as of one who always 
speaks in the imperative mood, an imperative rein- 
forced by a leather strap. And Christ drives us to 
worship. Christ drives us to service. How different 
is the thought of Paul ! The love, not the lash — the 
love of Christ constraineth us. There is no breaking 
of the will, there is only the voluntary bending of 
the will to the will of the Shepherd. 

Again, if He goeth before His sheep, Christ must 
know all about the way they are to take. Is the 
way rough and steep ? He knoweth it, for He goeth 
before them. Is the way long and wearisome? He 
knoweth it, for He goeth before them. Now, if He 
knows us, and if He knows the way, may we not 
trust Him for the way? 

Smooth let it be or rough, 

It will be still the best. 
Winding or straight, it leads 

Right onward to Thy rest. 



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One more thought. Our King thinks of Himself 
not only as the shepherd, who calls his own sheep 
by name, and leads them forth : He thinks of Him- 
self as the Good Shepherd, who has a dying love 
for His sheep. "I am the good shepherd. The 
good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep." 
" Scarcely for a righteous man will one die, for per- 
adventure for the good man some one would even 
dare to die." What shall we say of His love, who lays 
down His life for those who are but poor wayward 
sheep ? O, the dying love of Christ ! How can we 
understand it? I sometimes wish I had the skill 
to paint three pictures. The first would be a night 
scene, the Garden of Gethsemane, illumined only by 
Roman torches. Christ is standing before his cowed 
disciples, pleading with the mob, not for His safety, 
but for theirs. The dying love of Christ. 

The second picture would represent Jesus passing 
to his mock trial, while below in the courtyard Peter 
is swearing and denying his Lord, and I would paint 
the face of Christ as He hohed on Peter — in that 
look the love of the shepherd, who would lay down 
his life for the sheep he loves. The dying love of 
Christ. 

The third picture would be that of Calvary. I 
would paint the two crosses on which hung the two 
thieves. I don't suppose I could paint the central 
figure. I would, after the manner of one of our mod- 
ern painters, fill that central space with an unspeak- 
able glory, the glory of the dying love of Christ. 
Was the cross inevitable? No. "I lay down my 
life. None taketh it from me. I lay it down of my- 
self." 



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73 



" The good shepherd layeth down his life for the 
sheep." 

Thus does Christ Himself fill in, glorify, trans- 
figure the prophet's sketch of the Messiah. As you 
enter upon a new quarter-century of church life, it 
is yours to think of the Christ as a king, yes, but 
rather as a shepherd — to think of Him as a judge, 
yes, but rather as a personal guide — to think of Him 
as a destroyer of wickedness, yes, but rather as the 
suffering Saviour of the lost. 



10 



THE JOY OF THE CHILDBEN OF THE 
KING. 1 

Rev. ROLAND S. DAWSON. 



NE hundred years ago a wise man named Dr. 



\Jr Samuel Johnson wrote a story which I hope 
you will all read some day. Its opening sentence is 
said to be the finest sentence in the English lan- 
guage. The name of the story is " Rasselas." Long, 
long ago the King of Abyssinia prepared a home 
for his children in a lovely valley called the vale of 
Amhara. Everything that could delight the heart 
of man or child was brought to this valley, and 
nothing that could harm or annoy was allowed to 
enter. It was filled with graceful trees and beauti- 
ful flowers, and countless varieties of pretty fishes 
and interesting animals lived in the streams and in 
the forests. All that man could do to make the 
children of the king happy was done. But with all 
the beauties and pleasures that the world could give, 
Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, was not satisfied, and 
so, with his tutor and his sister as his companions, 
one day he made his escape from the happy valley. 
We can learn from this story a lesson of the hu- 




1 See page 5. 



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75 



man heart. We can learn that it is not possible for 
the children of the heavenly King to be satisfied with 
a selfish enjoyment of the things of this world. The 
children of earth are the children of God, and he 
has made them so that they cannot be happy in self- 
ishness. He is unselfish, and to share His joy we 
must be unselfish like Him. The name of God is 
Love, and Love is unselfishness. 

I wish you all could be happy all the time, and I 
will tell you how you can come nearest being so. It 
is by loving and helping others. Love should begin 
at home, but it should not stay there. It should go 
out to friend, schoolmate, teacher, neighbor and to all 
the world. Love shows itself in helpfulness. God 
is help. Help and Love, which are the same thing, 
form the bond that unites earth and heaven. H 
stands for heaven, E for earth, L for Lord, and P 
for people. All are joined together in the little word 
— -help. So I suggest that if you who are the children 
of the King want to share in the joy of the King, 
that you fill your lives with helpfulness. Mr. Moody 
says, "Do all the good you can, to all the people 
you can, at all the times you can, in all the places 
you can." It is a good rule. 

There was once a little girl named Mary Wood — 
not Mary Wouldn't, but Mary Wood. She was so 
kind and helpful and full of love to others that some 
one made a little verse about her. I wish you would 
learn it : Faithful little Mary Wood 

Always did the best she could. 
Let us follow Mary's plan, 
And always do the best we can. 



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When you have learned it I wish you would live it 
also. The biggest man in the world cannot do more 
than little Mary Wood, because she always did the 
best she could. 

Scholars, begin early to have a purpose in life. 
Paul was a great man, and he had a great, clear pur- 
pose. He said, " This one thing I do. ... I press 
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of 
God in Christ Jesus my Lord." Make it your pur- 
pose to do the best you can every day for everybody. 
This will help you to find the joy that belongs to the 
children of the King. 

And be content. Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't 
find fault. If you are living on Grumble Street, 
move out into Thanksgiving Street, and move right 
away. 

Paul had many trials and troubles, yet he said: 
" I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
to be content." No wise man ever said a greater 
word. 

Have a purpose, be content, and then trust God 
in all. Never fear failure. Do not trust your own 
strength, but trust God in everything. Paul had 
many enemies. He passed through many dangers, 
yet he said : "I am persuaded that neither death nor 
life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor 
things present nor things to come, nor height nor 
depth nor any other creature shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord. 7 ' 

With a strong purpose to love and help others, 
with a contented heart, with a trust in God as a great, 



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77 



kind, loving Father, I promise that you shall find the 
true joy of the children of the King, a joy that the 
world cannot give or take away. 

Now if you ever begin to feel blue or sad or poor 
or forlorn, I want you to remember that you are 
princes and princesses in the family of the King of 
kings, and just quote to yourselves a verse of the 
familiar hymn : 

My Father is rich in houses and lands, 
He holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands 5 
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, 
His coffers are full, He hath riches untold. 

I 'm the child of a King, 

The child of a King ; 

With Jesus, my Saviour, 

I 'm the child of a King. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 1 



Mr. DARWIN R. JAMES. 

THE committee having in charge the preparation 
of a programme for the celebration of the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the pastorate of Rev. Dr. 
Foote, assigned to me the pleasant duty of presiding 
upon this occasion and of extending to the friends 
of the Throop Avenue Mission Sunday School a 
cordial greeting. 

It is gratifying that so many of those who at one 
time or another were workers in that field have re- 
sponded and are present upon this occasion. 

In the providence of God it was so ordered that 
the establishment of a mission Sunday school in a 
destitute part of the city in the autumn of 1852, was 
the humble beginning of a great work for Christ, an 
incident in which, the celebration of a successful 
twenty-five-year pastorate, has brought us here this 
evening. To you, my dear friends, who had part in 
laying the foundation, and to you who came later, 
but were equally sharers in the work, my heart goes 
out with sincere regard and esteem. I congratulate 
you upon the success of your efforts. To a goodly 
number of us many years of delightful association 

1 See page 6. 

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79 



were permitted, and although we did not see all the 
fruit we desired in those whom we endeavored to 
instruct, yet I venture to say that every one of you 
admits that you received in your own selves greater 
blessings than you imparted j that you were glori- 
ously repaid for any efforts put forth for others. It 
is thus the Lord recompenses His followers. In 
watering others we ourselves are watered. 

The event which has brought us together, the 
commemoration of the twenty-five-year pastorate 
of a faithful under-shepherd, is not a frequent one 
in these modern times when change and progress are 
everywhere the order of the day. Twenty-five-year 
pastorates are the exception and not the rule, yet 
the twenty-five years of Dr. Foote's pastorate have 
rapidly passed, because of the harmony which has 
existed and the devotion of pastor and people to the 
legitimate work of a church of Jesus Christ. The 
Lord has greatly prospered the efforts of His servant 
and the standard of the cross has constantly been 
kept aloft. The little flock of twenty-five years ago 
has become a strong body of Christian workers and 
a mighty force for good in our great city. From 
this pulpit during these years no uncertain sounds 
have come, but a living gospel has been preached in 
great love and sincerity, to a people with willing 
ears who have heard the truth gladly. 

I have spoken of the church as a " little flock 99 at 
the time when Dr. Foote began his work in this field, 
which was November first, 1873. It was such as 
compared with the enrolled membership at this time, 
which is over nine hundred. It numbered at that 



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time one hundred and thirty-seven ; but it was a 
well-organized body of trained and devoted workers, 
many of whom had had long years of experience in 
church and mission work. To these the new pastor 
came as a leader as well as a teacher, and with much 
success has he also filled this position. No part of the 
field has been without his watchful supervision and 
care. 

The work at the mission has held its proper place 
in his ministry and the workers an equal place in 
his esteem. He fully recognizes the fact that the 
impress of the early workers has remained and has 
been, in his moulding hand, the dominant influence 
in the spiritual work of the church. 

It is not unreasonable, therefore, that an early 
place on the programme should have been given to 
the mission and its friends. It is forty-six years ago 
this month that it opened its doors to such as had 
accepted an invitation to be present, aud for forty- 
six years they have never been closed upon the 
Lord's day, winter or summer. 

During its earlier years it was a humble affair, 
with few teachers and not many scholars who could 
read, and was not even dignified with a name. Its 
sessions were held in a room intended for a store, in 
a sparsely settled neighborhood on the outskirts of 
the city, where only the poor and wretched abide for 
a time, until they are crowded out to newer fields 
beyond, for it was among those who hang on the 
outskirts that the school was commenced. To the 
eye of an ordinary observer it was a weak effort in a 
forlorn section of the city, but the Lord prospered 



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81 



the efforts of His servants and, before ten years had 
passed, the school was occupying its own edifice 
which its teachers and their friends had erected, and 
upon which there was never any debt. 

Here it was that the teachers that same year, 1862, 
organized the Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
being constrained thereto because of the necessity to 
have a place where those who had come to a know- 
ledge of the truth could confess Christ and become a 
part of His visible Church. It was here that the 
Hopkins Street German Presbyterian Church was 
likewise organized a few years later. Here, too, the 
German Young Men's Christian Association was or- 
ganized. Here, for several years, a Methodist Epis- 
copal Church conducted its services and carried on 
its work. Later, and for a short period, a German 
Baptist Church had the use of the premises whilst 
they were rebuilding their sanctuary. 

Our friends of African descent also frequently 
had the use of the place. Number five school of the 
Brooklyn Industrial School Association was likewise 
organized here, and used the rooms for nineteen 
years, until last year when they removed to their 
newly erected home around the corner. Just now a 
free kindergarten is being carried on for poor chil- 
dren, by a society of ladies not connected with our 
own work. For fully thirty years, or since the 
Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church vacated the 
premises to commence work on this spot, the mission 
building has been freely given, without charge, to 
any worthy persons who desired it for worthy pur- 
poses. For at least forty years the teachers have 
11 



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maintained mid-week meetings of various kinds, 
sometimes having a student from Union Theological 
Seminary employed to assist, and during much of 
the time having the services of Bible readers. 

Although always attached to a Presbyterian 
church, yet in fact it has partaken largely of the 
nature of a union school, as many of its workers 
have come from other churches. Denominationalism 
has never been prominent, yet the Westminster 
Assembly's Shorter Catechism has always been 
taught. Though from the beginning it has drawn 
its scholars mainly from the poorer people and has 
been known as the Mission, yet it has always man- 
aged its own financial affairs, and has not been de- 
pendent in the ordinary mission sense. The teachers 
and their friends have mainly been responsible for 
the maintenance of the school, its Bible readers and 
other paid workers. The benevolent contributions 
of the scholars have been kept separate and were 
never used for current expenses, but have gone to 
help forward the work of Christ in fields outside our 
own. A missionary spirit has been cultivated and 
the giving habit been taught so that the yearly con- 
tributions average over six hundred dollars. 

The roll of officers and teachers numbers eighty, 
and of scholars rather more than a thousand, with 
an average attendance of about seven hundred, for 
fifty-two Sundays each year. 

There has been no material change in these re- 
spects for a series of years, as the capacity of the 
building was long since reached. Of officers and 
teachers one third were formerly scholars. Of its 



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83 



scholars quite a number are in the Christian min- 
istry, having been graduated at the Bloomfield 
Theological Seminary, and are pastors of German 
churches. 

Some of the noticeable characteristics of the 
school are, length of terms of service of many of its 
teachers, and the spirit of entire harmony which has 
prevailed. Not a few of its workers served during 
periods of twenty, twenty-five, and thirty years, and 
some even longer 5 and as for harmony, it may be 
said that there was never any other spirit mani- 
fested, for all questions were decided at teachers' 
meetings, where practical unanimity was reached. 
Fidelity to the cause of the Master has been the 
guiding impulse. Simplicity of method in carry- 
ing on the school and persistence in teaching God's 
holy word, plainly and directly, are also character- 
istics. The great principles of repentance for sin 
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ have been un- 
ceasingly taught. "To glorify God that we may 
enjoy him forever" has always had first place, 
consequently God's blessings have never been 
withheld. 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 1 



Rev. ROBERT G. HUTCHINS, D. D. 

SOME months ago, at a meeting of Presbytery 
in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the retiring Modera- 
tor in his sermon playfully remarked, that he had 
been making careful investigations and had reached 
the conclusion that Adam was a Presbyterian. At 
a later session of the meeting, one of the ministers 
present expressed his own thanks and those of his 
brethren for this remunerative research, but sug- 
gested his regret that it had not been carried far 
enough to determine to what stripe of Presbyterian- 
ism our first father belonged. The speaker added 
that his own meditation concerning the matter had 
brought him to certain interesting conclusions. 
"At his marriage/ 7 he continued, "Adam must have 
been a United Presbyterian; when he fell, and be- 
came a cumberer of the ground, he must have been 
a Cumberland Presbyterian ; at his acceptance of the 
promised atonement, he became a Reformed Presby- 
terian. But doubtless at first he was just a plain 
Presbyterian, a member of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Eden." 

As for myself, though I informally commenced 
my ministry here in connection with this Presby- 
terian mission, I have for the bulk of my life been 

1 See page 6. 

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85 



associated with a sister denomination, but feel grate- 
ful that I have come back to the true Church in time 
to celebrate with you this Jubilee. I think I must 
be classed as a Reformed Presbyterian. I certainly 
am whiter than I used to be. 

Mt. Snowdon, the highest of the Welsh hills, is an 
admirable point of view, commanding the sea, the 
isle of Anglesea, and the English lake district. But 
it is of special interest as being, with the contiguous 
elevations, the original English soil, the first land 
thrown up from the primeval sea, the nucleus about 
which the green fields and moors, the wealth and the 
commerce, the free institutions and religious life of 
England have accumulated. Standing to-night with 
the Throop Avenue Mission, we have a magnificent 
point of view, both for retrospect and prospect ; be- 
holding what wonderful things God has wrought 
from small beginnings, and with the eye of faith 
beholding also the wide-spread landscape of God's 
future blessings. And here we stand at the very 
nucleus around which great and beneficent organiza- 
tions have grown, as by natural accretion. 

The Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, took 
the greatest pride in showing her in her infancy to 
his friends ; and was accustomed to say : " Take 
good care of her, she will yet be Queen of England." 
Could they to whom this injunction was addressed 
have foreseen the magnificent issues of Victoria's 
reign, through the more than threescore years, how 
earnestly would they have heeded it ! Those who 
planted the Throop Avenue Mission Sunday School 
could not have anticipated the vast results which we 



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this day celebrate, yet they heeded the injunctions 
of God's providence and spirit, bidding them take 
good care of the sacred trust confided to them. 

There is a legend that in the Forum at Rome a 
great chasm suddenly appeared. Multitudinous cart- 
loads of debris which were cast into it failed to heal 
the vast rent. The oracles were consulted. They 
replied : " The most precious thing in Rome must be 
put into it." A young soldier, interpreting the oracle 
to mean manly valor, stepped into the crevasse. In- 
stantly it closed seamless. 

Into a neighborhood of want and sin and sorrow, 
a yawning abyss of human need, the founders and 
early workers of this Mission stepped, full pano- 
plied with spiritual armor. They offered themselves 
at the mandate of the heavenly oracle, and to-day 
the social breach is largely healed. 

Our Saviour was born in a manger. The Throop 
Avenue Mission was born in a store-room. In a store- 
room it was nursed and nurtured in its infancy and 
childhood. This fact is significant ; for the religion 
there taught and illustrated was practical rather than 
theoretical. They who were associated with this 
Mission were too busy going about doing good to 
indulge in profitless speculation. 

On March 1, 1877, Gov. Hayes left Columbus, 
Ohio, for Washington, to be inaugurated as Presi- 
dent. The dispute concerning the validity of his 
election was thought by some to jeopardize his per- 
sonal safety. As usual on such occasions, he was 
escorted by soldiery to the depot. As I saw the Gov- 
ernor in his carriage, surrounded by his wife and 



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children, I remarked to a friend that I should regard 
myself better defended by that family than by the 
bayonets of the soldiers ; for he would be an arrant 
coward who would fire a shot at the President's 
heart, through such a group as that. 

In the Throop Avenue Mission, and in the organiza- 
tions which have sprung from it, evangelical Chris- 
tianity has been defended, not by the cudgels of 
controversy, but by the hearts that loved it, and by 
the lives that practised it. 

It should, however, be noted that these early 
workers had been thoroughly indoctrinated in Chris- 
tian truth by their beloved and venerated Dr. Wells, 
who is graciously spared to us to rejoice with us 
in our present rejoicing. And he who had trained 
them in Christian ways from their childhood, did 
not send them into this Christian work to abandon 
them. 

In the building of the great musical conservatory 
of Oberlin, Ohio, I once saw a laborer wheeling a 
heavy stone in a barrow up a steep inclined plane. 
The board on which he walked was too narrow for 
two abreast, but behind him a fellow- workman, with 
a hand on either side of him, braced him as he pushed 
his heavy load to its place in the wall. In like man- 
ner these early workmen, in the rearing of the walls 
of the kingdom, were braced by the sympathy and 
the prayers of their beloved pastor. 

In later years they have been backed and strength- 
ened by the wise counsel and earnest cooperation of 
the honored minister of the Throop Avenue Church, 
whose silver jubilee we now celebrate. 



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The physical health and the youthful, hopeful 
spirit of the early workers gave a certain whole- 
someness to the religion they exhibited. The his- 
torian of the Mission, our present chairman, says 
that many of them walked together, in going and 
coming, eight miles every Sunday ; so it would seem 
that they illustrated their Christianity not less by 
their walk than by their conversation. I have no- 
where seen a more genial and cheerful type of piety, 
one more absolutely free from all morbidness and 
cant, than that which was here presented. Nor have 
I elsewhere seen the spirit of Christian fellowship 
and cooperation more beautifully illustrated. 

If family and commercial prosperity has attended 
the subsequent life of practically all these early 
workers, it has not been on account of their natural 
gifts alone, but largely on account of their well-or- 
dered lives, upon which God has smiled. 

How could the Lord have more signally owned and 
honored their fidelity and loyalty than by the re- 
quitals of His covenant blessings, in raising up their 
children about them to be their fellow-members in 
the Church of Christ, and their allies in the work of 
the kingdom ? None would be more ready than the 
men, who through the long years have labored here, 
to bear witness to the special ability and devotion of 
the women who have been identified with the work. 
Not only have some of these men, prepared by their 
training here, distinguished themselves in the great 
enterprises of the Church at large, at home and abroad, 
but some of these women also. 

The lamented Rev. Dr. Burton, of Hartford, told 



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me of the wife of a country minister, who complained 
that her husband made her rise first and build the 
fire in the morning. She appealed to him with the 
question: "Do you think, Dr. Burton, the woman 
ought to rise first?" He replied: "Yes, the woman 
fell first, and she ought to get up first." All will 
readily concede to one woman, whose absence across 
the sea deprives her of the coveted privilege of this 
celebration, and deprives us of the inspiration of her 
gracious presence, the honor of the initiative in many 
of the most beneficent projects of this Mission and 
this Church. 

There is a legend that Charlemagne at every spring- 
time comes forth from his grave, and walks up and 
down the Rhine, bringing fertility to the vineyards, 
and making the fields productive. I cannot close 
without a recognition of those who were formerly 
associated with us, but are now resting from their 
labors, while their works do follow them. The hea- 
vens bend low to-night, beloved, over you, whom 
I was once permitted to greet as my fellow- workers. 
Your sainted associates are not only in the great 
cloud of your witnesses, but hallowed in your mem- 
ories, they still move among you, fructifying with 
their sympathy, their tears and their prayers, the 
field of your continued labors. 

Some four years ago, spending a few months in 
Honolulu, I was accustomed to watch with interest 
the bi-weekly sailing of the good ship Australia for 
the port of San Francisco. Friends gathered on the 
ship's deck to bid their departing kindred farewell. 
They filled their hands with fragrant flowers ; they 
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adorned their hats and necks with bright wreaths. 
As the anchor was weighed, they said the tender 
good-by, and retired to the dock. The band, which 
had braced with martial music the spirits of those 
who were to be long parted, now struck the touch- 
ing strains of " Home, Sweet Home." As the ship 
passed out of the bay, those on the deck and those 
on the dock waved to each other their white greet- 
ings. Nor did these parting salutations cease until 
distance had hidden the separating friends from each 
other's gaze. They who remained lamented not the 
departing voyagers as lost, but while tears filled 
their own eyes, congratulated them that they were 
going on over the grand Pacific seas, that they were 
to enter, through the Golden Grate, into a port of 
the dear Home Land, there, with the rasping of the 
shallows, to behold upon the quay other loved ones, 
gathered, to greet their home-coming, with flowers 
and music and all tokens of joy and welcome. 

Those with whom you have lingered on the strand 
with parting hymn and prayer, till hands were 
parted, and your friends were launched upon the 
calm sea of Death; those whom you have never 
mourned as really lost, but with whom you have 
rejoiced, as having safely made their vogage to the 
dear Home Land, and as having entered the Golden 
Gate and received the heavenly welcomes, — these 
beloved ones whose hearts are still with yon, shall 
some sweet day come down to the shining shore to 
greet, with chaplets and songs, your own home-com- 
ing. And then you shall receive the crown which the 
Lord, the Righteous J udge, shall give you in that day* 



THE CHARACTER OF THE IDEAL 
CHRISTIAN WORKER. 1 



Rev. HENRY VAN DYKE, D. D., LL. D. 

IT is a great pleasure to be permitted to take 
part in these services to-night. As a Brooklyn 
boy I am always glad to come back to the home of 
my boyhood. This city is sacred in my memory, 
because it was here that my honored father did his 
life work. As I pass through these streets I still 
feel the influence of his presence and personality, 
and the lessons that he taught me, — the best les- 
sons of my life, — come back to me with freshness 
and power. 

It was in this very place, twenty -five years ago, 
that I listened to him as he spoke the words of greet- 
ing and good cheer at the installation of your pastor, 
the Rev. Dr. Lewis R. Foote. It was here that I 
heard him describe the remarkable work already 
done by Mr. Darwin R. James, the Superintendent 
of the Throop Avenue Mission School. 

Since that time there have been many and great 
changes here. The plain frame building in which 
you then assembled has given place to this spacious 
and beautiful structure of brick and stone. The 

1 See page 6. 

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Sunday School, which was already so large and 
prosperous that it was one of the notable things in 
the religious life of Brooklyn, has been like a tree 
planted by the rivers of waters, sending down its 
roots ever deeper and deeper, spreading its branches 
wider and wider, putting forth a cloud of unwither- 
ing foliage, and producing fruit in never-f ailing- 
abundance. 

But two things have not changed. I see here to- 
day the same Superintendent upon whom I then 
looked with a boy's admiration ; and I see him doing 
the same work, with the same ever-youthful vigor 
and wise enthusiasm. I see here the same Pastor 
who was then beginning his service to this church j 
and I find him a living example of the possibility of 
making the influence of a minister of the Gospel 
grow broader and deeper with every year for a 
quarter of a century, in the same place, — in spite of 
the fact that this has been called an age of short 
pastorates. It is true that he has added a touch of 
silver to the locks which crown his head, but this 
is nothing compared to the pure gold which he has 
wrought into the invisible crown of his faithful 
service to this people and to the cause of Christ. 

When one of your elders, Mr. McKee, came to ask 
me to take part in this service, and suggested as a 
theme for my remarks " The Character of the Ideal 
Christian Worker/' I could not but be glad that he 
had furnished me with a text for my discourse, and 
that I should be sure to find living illustrations of it 
without looking beyond the limits of this platform. 

First of all, then, let me say in regard to this 



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theme, that the ideal Christian is a worker. The 
Kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of work. God 
Himself , as revealed to us in the Bible, is not an 
idle deity, sitting far above the world and look- 
ing down upon it in philosophical contemplation, 
like those imaginary gods whom the old Roman 
stoics worshipped. He is a working God, and His 
Son Jesus Christ declared, in words that reveal the 
true nature of the Godhead, "My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work." The Gospel of Jesus Christ 
is simply the glad news that God has given to all 
the world, through His Son, an invitation to enter 
His kingdom, and "to every man his work." The 
Church is simply the company of the servants of 
God and Christ. The best Christian is the one who 
believes in God in such a way that he is willing to 
give himself altogether to the divine service in the 
uplifting of humanity. True orthodoxy is nothing 
else than real usefulness in the cause of Christ. 

But how is this usefulness to be best attained? 
What is the character of the Christian who is able 
to render the best service to his Master and to his 
fellow-men f 

The personal qualities of the workman must in 
the long run determine the nature and value of the 
work done. A single stroke of good work may be 
done by chance, without any very clear intention or 
any very great effort ; but good workmanship, run- 
ning through a long life, and proving itself in solid 
and enduring achievement, can only come from a 
good workman. You know, for example, that a 
poor player may happen to make an uncommonly 



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fine stroke in the royal and ancient game of golf. 
Bnt when the shrewd old Scotchman who is watch- 
ing him says, " Aye, that was nae sae bad, bnt can 
ye do it again to-morrow ? 77 his question goes down 
to the root of the matter, and marks the difference 
between a " fluke 77 and the really good play of a good 
player. Permanent and steady success in anything 
depends upon the attainment of those qualities which 
underlie it, and make it secure. It is worth our 
while, as Christian workers, to give earnest thought 
to those elements of character which alone can en- 
able us to do good work for Christ for a long time, 
and with growing success from day to day and from 
year to year. 

It seems to me that there are three of these ele- 
ments which are most important, and of these I wish 
to speak very briefly. 

1. The ideal Christian worker must have ideals. 

The work to be done in the kingdom of God is of 
such a nature that it cannot possibly be performed 
in a dull, mechanical, routine spirit. The inspira- 
tion of faith must come into it. It must be illumi- 
nated by the light of a holy imagination, revealing 
its true meaning and its ultimate aim. 

We need to have an ideal of the great cause for 
which we labor, the kingdom of God, that supreme 
spiritual dominion which is righteousness and peace 
and joy in the Holy Ghost. We must realize that 
all our work is for the advancement of that sov- 
ereign and blessed empire. We must feel that there 
is nothing in all the world so well worth work- 
ing for as the spread of that glorious reign of divine 



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truth and spiritual liberty and Christ-like holiness. 
The vital inspiration of our labors must be the de- 
sire that God's kingdom may come, and that His 
will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. There 
is nothing that the Christian world needs to-day 
more than a clear vision of the meaning of that 
grand old Scotch Presbyterian watchword, " The 
crown and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." We 
want a revival of the patriotism of the kingdom of 
heaven. 

We need also to have ideals of the particular work 
that we are called to do in Christ's service. Much 
of it, in its outward form, is hard, tedious and dis- 
tasteful. There is nothing especially heroic or ad- 
venturous in the outward aspect of such labors as 
teaching a class in Sunday School, or reading the 
Bible to a few poor people, or ministering to a few 
sick people, or helping a few ignorant and unhappy 
people into a better way of living, or clothing a few 
people who are destitute, or visiting a few people 
who are shut up in the prisons of vice and wretched- 
ness, or speaking a quiet word for Christ to a few 
companions, or even preaching from week to week 
and from year to year to a larger audience. Work 
like this is always slow, often tiresome, sometimes 
disheartening. We shall never be able to do it well, 
to put our hearts into it, to rejoice and glory in it, 
unless we have an ideal of what it really means. 
Every word spoken for God is a seed of immortality 
which may spring up and bear fruit unto everlasting 
life. Who would not willingly scatter a thousand 
seeds, for the sake of tasting one cluster of that 



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fruit of his own planting ? Every deed of kindness 
done to the poor and needy is done to Christ Him- 
self. Who wonld not willingly spend and be spent 
for the sake of hearing the Master say at last, " In- 
asmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of 
these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me" ? Every 
soul won for Christ is won to endless holiness and 
happiness. Who would not gladly give the best 
that he has for the sake of gaining a property right 
in the endless joy of an immortal spirit? " Heaven/' 
said Lord Tennyson, "is just the perpetual ministry 
of one soul to another." If we can carry this ideal 
into our Christian work, surely it will help to make 
us ideal Christian workers. 

2. The ideal Christian worker must be full of hope, 
and not afraid to live by it. 

Nothing checks Christian work more completely 
than the spirit of despondency. In religion, pessi- 
mism is only another way of spelling paralysis. The 
cheerful, hopeful souls not only do more work, but 
the work that they do is a hundredfold more valua- 
ble because they do it cheerfully and hopefully. 

By hopefulness, however, I do not mean the temper 
of soft, sweet, mushy optimism. The people who 
have a comfortable feeling that everything is all 
right, and that nobody needs to be very much dis- 
turbed about anything, are certainly not the people 
who are the most useful in the cause of Christ. You 
can no more get good work out of such people than 
you could build a sea wall out of boiled hominy. 

True hopefulness sees the evils that exist in the 
world, and looks beyond them to the good by which 



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they are to be overcome. It recognizes the difficulties 
that stand in the way, but it is not dismayed by their 
aspect. It believes that under the leadership of 
Christ there is surely a way to pass through them, 
or to climb over them. It is sometimes wounded in 
the fight, but always in front, never in the back, be- 
cause it never retreats. It believes that the way out 
of the trouble lies, as it did at the battle of San Juan, 
" forward, and up the hill, into victory." 

The hopeful worker not only does his own work 
better, but he cheers all the others who are working 
near him. He is like a man with a lantern, on a 
dark night. The light which his own spirit spreads 
around him encourages and guides his companions. 
He is no poorer, and they are vastly richer, because 
his little candle sheds its beams. 

Moreover, hopefulness is the source of two of the 
most practical qualities in the Christian worker : pa- 
tience, which endures hardships; and persistence, 
which keeps steadily on working day after day, and 
year after year. There is a verse in the 119th Psalm 
for which I have always been particularly grateful. 
In it the Psalmist says : " I have stuck unto thy testi- 
monies, Lord. 77 The familiar phraseology gives 
force to the thought. The power of " sticking to it " 
is one of the most desirable things in a Christian and 
a worker. Such power you have seen and recognized 
here in this Church and Sunday School. You have 
special reason to be thankful for the lives of those 
who have here honored God and served their fellow- 
men for many years, by sticking to the Lord's testi- 
monies and to their own work. 
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3. The ideal Christian worker must be full of love 
and not ashamed of it. 

By love I do not mean what the world means, the 
desire to possess and to enjoy, but what Christ means, 
the desire to give and to bless. Surely it is not ne- 
cessary to say a single word in regard to the necessity 
of such love toward man in the accomplishment of 
Christian work. Without it, we can do nothing. 
Without it, you may be as orthodox a preacher as 
John Calvin, or as eloquent a preacher as John Knox, 
but you will be nothing more than a sounding brass 
and a tinkling cymbal. Without it, you may give 
thousands of dollars for the foundation of churches, 
schools, hospitals, asylums, but you will really be 
giving nothing. You must first learn to love your 
fellow-men, to care with all your heart for their wel- 
fare, to desire sincerely their holiness and happiness, 
their peace and salvation. Then you can speak to 
them with living power in the name of Christ, then 
you can give to them, and your gift will be blessed, 
because a part of yourself will go with it. 

But how is it possible that our work should have 
in it the element of love to God in this particular 
sense of " the desire to give and to bless n ? Is He 
not far above our gifts, far beyond our power of 
blessing? Not so, says the Bible. The Word of 
God teaches us that when we bestow a benefit upon 
our fellow-men we are really giving unto the Lord. 
It declares that His divine joy is deepened and in- 
creased by every soul that is added to His kingdom. 
It assures us that when we serve Him faithfully we 
not only secure our own peace and gladness, but we 



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enter into a joy which He Himself shares, "the joy 
of our Lord." 

Let this, then, be my closing word to-night. The 
highest motive that any of us can have in our Chris- 
tian work, the motive which, if we follow it loyally, 
will make all of us ideal Christian workers, is no- 
thing else than the desire to please God, to do what 
He wants us to do, to carry out His purposes and 
wishes in the world, and thus to give to God and to 
bless God. May this spirit animate all the work of 
this church and mission, and keep it thoroughly 
alive, and make it ever more and more serviceable 
to the present age and to the eternal ages yet to 
come. And may all who labor here, pastor, super- 
intendent, teachers, scholars, elders, and people, 
have their reward at last in hearing the Master say 
to them, " Well done, ye good and faithful servants ; 
enter ye into the joy of your Lord." 



THE TRUE AIM OF A YOUNG PEO- 
PLE'S ASSOCIATION, SOCIALLY. 1 

Rev. ROBT. J. KENT, D. D. 



HEN your President came to me last spring 



T ? and asked me to be with you on this happy 
occasion I was doing my best to unload some of the 
burden of work which I have been carrying, and I 
had resolved that after my summer vacation I would 
not do anything outside of my own church. And 
yet, while in that frame of mind, I very readily and 
gladly accepted the kind invitation to be with you 
to-night, because it would afford me an opportunity 
to testify to the very high regard in which I have 
held this Church and its pastor for many years. 

This is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the com- 
mencement of a very successful and happy pastor- 
ate. For about twenty of those twenty-five years I 
have known your pastor and have known of the 
splendid work of this Church. Many years ago, while 
I was a student in Union Seminary, I was invited to 
preach one Sunday during your pastor's absence on 
account of illness. The impression made upon me at 
that time was a very pleasant one which has deepened 
with the passing years. There is no church in Brook- 
lyn, as I said to my people last Sunday morning, that 




1 See page 8. 



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101 



I hold in higher esteem than the Throop Avenue 
Church. You have illustrated the difference be- 
tween a success that is superficial and only apparent, 
and a success that is real and permanent. You have 
made plain the difference between building on an 
unstable foundation a superstructure of wood, hay, 
stubble, and erecting on the eternal foundation of 
Christ an edifice of precious metal and stone. And 
the influence of your life and work as a church has 
gone out to other churches and has been most salu- 
tary. So I congratulate both people and pastor and 
hope that this pleasant relation may continue for 
many years. 

You have asked me to speak in regard to the social 
side of a young people's organization. In doing so 
I am not thinking especially of a Christian Endeavor 
Society j for experience and observation have shown 
me that there is not much difference between a Young 
People's Society — as it is called in some churches — 
and a Christian Endeavor Society, as the young peo- 
ple's organization is called in other churches. Nor 
is there any difference in character between the so- 
ciability of a particular society and the sociability 
of the church of which it is a part. Let us all feel 
that we are young to-night and that the words I 
have to say are meant for us all. 

The aim of a young people's organization should 
be, in the first place, to cultivate a kindly feeling 
toward one another because the members have one 
Lord and Master, J esus Christ. Christian sociability 
is the blossom of Christian fraternity, and Christian 
fraternity is rooted in Christ. He is the centre to 



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which we all are drawn. It is common relation to 
Him as individuals that makes us brethren in our 
relation to each other. And the sociability that 
should be our aim is the kindliness and considerate- 
ness of thought and speech and action toward one 
another that are born of mutual love. One of the 
most social organizations I was ever connected with 
was my college class. From different parts of the 
country we had come together ; most of us had never 
seen each other • we could not call each other by 
name. But it was not long before all feeling of 
strangeness had worn off, and each other's names, 
faces, voices, characteristics were familiar. We did 
not think and confer about being sociable ; we did 
not appoint any committee to secure that object ; but 
we were on as social terms with each other as could 
be desired. For a common purpose had brought us 
together and we possessed a common interest in 
our daily life and tasks. We came to regard each 
other as brothers ; without any special aim or effort 
a delightful spirit of sociability grew among us. 
Considerations of wealth or poverty, of larger or 
smaller intellectual gifts, were lost sight of in the 
consciousness of brotherhood. The parting from 
each other at the end of four years was in most cases, 
I am sure, sadder than the parting from loved ones 
at home when they went away to college. 

I visited Scotland several years in company with 
my father. Nearly all the passengers on the steamer 
were either of Scottish birth or parentage. The 
Scotch are a naturally clannish people and this char- 
acteristic found full and easy expression among the 



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fellow-passengers, journeying to the land where 
most of them had been born and in which all were 
interested. Their speech became more strongly fla- 
vored with the accent of their country's dialect ; they 
were reminiscent ; Scotland, her lochs, her hills, her 
moors, her cities, her heroes, her glory, was the bur- 
den of thought and speech, and a bond of fellowship 
was soon formed between them. They became so- 
ciable through a community of interest, and without 
trying. 

These two illustrations will, I trust, make my 
meaning clear. Not only are Christians animated 
by a common purpose and engaged in a common ser- 
vice, but they possess a common vital relation to 
one and the same person, their Master. They are 
members of the body of which Christ is the head. 
It is out of this common relation that Christian so- 
ciability springs. So it was in the early days of the 
Christian Church. The disciples came together from 
different places and from different walks of life; 
they formed a circle of which Christ was the centre ; 
and thus they came to know and love each other bet- 
ter, to rejoice in each other's joy, and to mourn in 
each other's sorrow. Reference has been made by 
your President this evening to the fact that the de- 
velopment of a spirit of sociability is one of the ur- 
gent needs of a city church. It certainly is, in my 
judgment. It is one of the things being lost sight of 
to-day in our large city churches. Wrong concep- 
tions of the church are prevalent. Some regard it 
as the place where a certain man preaches, and you 
will hear them constantly speak of going to hear 



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such a man preach. Others look upon the church as 
a social club, membership in which is limited to a 
particular class. But the idea of a fraternity in the 
bond of which rich and poor, educated and unedu- 
cated, are united because they have a common rela- 
tion of love and loyalty to Christ — this is not 
emphasized, if indeed it is recognized. Instead of 
being brothers and sisters in Christ, church members 
are strangers to each other. Many a church is sur- 
passed by the lodge, the club. Fraternal organiza- 
tions in the world are gathering in the men. You 
will hear men declare that there is more real fellow- 
ship in the lodge than in the church ; and it is true 
of some lodges and some churches. The churches of 
Christ need to make Christian fellowship, which is 
only another name for sociability, a real thing. 

I wish to say in the second place that in my judg- 
ment the best results socially are obtained, when the 
strong emphasis is laid by an organization, not upon 
sociability, but on service. We sometimes get a cer- 
tain thing better by pursuing something else than 
by seeking it directly. Christ promised that certain 
things should be added to those who should seek the 
Kingdom of Heaven first. When people come to- 
gether for service and in accordance with the mind of 
Christ, they will develop more sociability in that 
way than by any other special method. The most 
social gatherings in the church of which I am pastor 
are the informal meetings after the prayer-meeting. 
There is no benediction that I can pronounce that 
will dismiss them. Of a kindred spirit that has been 
fostered by their uniting in worship and work, they 



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love to linger and enjoy a real fellowship. Doubt- 
less it is the same in this Church. There will be no 
more real sociability at the Christian Endeavor so- 
ciable that the young people of our church are ar- 
ranging for the week after next than there was last 
night when they tarried for twenty minutes after the 
devotional meeting. 

If I were asked, " Who are the most sociable peo- 
ple in your church ? " I should answer the official 
boards. They are the ones who are most intent 
upon serving Christ and their duties bring them into 
delightfully cordial relations to each other. The 
Lord's business is their aim ; the enjoyment of a pre- 
cious friendship is one of the results. So I would 
say to the young people of this Church : Let your 
first concern be to promote the spiritual welfare of 
the church, and in doing it you will be securing the 
best social results. 

By giving heed to these principles we can make 
the church attractive. The atmosphere of the church 
will be warm with the spirit of genuine cordiality, 
and that will be a great help in bringing men within 
the sphere of the church's influence. People like to 
go where they are welcomed and made to feel at 
home. One day last week a mother told me how she 
and her sons were led to connect themselves with a 
certain small church that needed their presence and 
help and which has been a blessing to them. Hav- 
ing just moved into the neighborhood, the elder son 
proposed when Sunday morning came that they 
should go to a certain prominent church. But it 
was a long distance from their home, and the mother 
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was wearied and suggested going instead to the little 
church nearer home. Reluctantly the son consented ; 
they all went, and after the service were greeted 
kindly and made to feel that they were heartily wel- 
come. On the following Sunday the mother said she 
felt able to go to the church her son had proposed 
the previous Sunday ; but he said that he preferred 
going to the little church where they had been so 
kindly received. And the relation thus formed con- 
tinued for many years to their mutual advantage. I 
relate this incident just because it is real and in no 
respect remarkable. What has been done in other 
churches can be done in this Church and doubtless is 
being done. 

There are questions concerning the social life of a 
church or young people's organization that can be 
satisfactorily answered only as the circumstances 
of each congregation are taken into consideration. 
What may be eminently desirable in one part of 
the city may be unnecessary in another. In some 
churches the family idea is emphasized j in others it 
is not. In connection with so-called institutional 
churches clubs for men and boys have been formed. 
In a community of homes they may not be needed ; 
and in my judgment it is a serious mistake for the 
church to usurp the place of or undermine the influ- 
ence of the home. There is no grander institution 
on the earth for the saving and safe-guarding of men 
than the Christian home. Church clubs are not to 
be encouraged if they tend to draw men away from 
good homes. Let us do all we can to foster the 
Christian home life. But in a community where the 



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home life is not and cannot be made attractive, I 
would heartily advocate the church club. The same 
is true of the question of amusements. Circum- 
stances and the spirit of genuine fellowship and Chris- 
tian service will lead to a proper solution. Enter- 
tainments that are intended to promote sociability 
but that have a tendency to diminish the grace of 
benevolence cannot be justified. And any particular 
form of amusement, such as card-playing or dancing, 
which some cannot engage in because of ignorance 
or conscience, will be ruled out by the spirit of 
Christian love and courtesy. We ought always to 
aim at the best. There is need to-day for people to 
discriminate between the hurtful aud the entirely 
innocent features of popular amusements. There are 
some excellent forms of amusement that have no 
moral quality of themselves ; they become harmful 
when linked to certain vicious practices. It is not 
necessary to discard the amusement, but only to get 
rid of its bad features. 

I wish this Young People's Association prosperity 
in the coming years. May you all get so near to the 
Master that you will feel the beating of each other's 
hearts. 



THE TEUE AIM OF A YOUNG PEO- 



PLE'S ASSOCIATION, SPIRITUALLY. 1 
Rev. CORNELIUS WOELFKIN. 

A DEFINITION of terms is the first requisite to 
a right understanding of a theme. In the cap- 
tion for this address, the words " spiritual aim 77 fall 
into emphatic position and call for definition. In 
the word "aim 77 three things are suggested: an 
object ; the line of direction toward the object ; and 
the exercise of some force or power that moves in 
accordance with the object. The word " spiritual 77 
denominates the character and quality of the aim. 
In the Christian sense, the term " spiritual 77 is applied 
to those things which have to do with God, who is a 
Spirit. A spiritual aim, then, is the aim of the Spirit 
of God. The Holy Spirit sets before the believer a 
definite object : He has a method by which He makes 
this object known: He exercises a power through 
which He brings the believer into conformity with 
that object. And the true aim of the Christian is to 
know and yield to the purpose of the Holy Spirit. 

The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the believer is 
threefold. He forms Christ objectively upon the 
vision of faith. He conforms the believer subjec- 

1 See page 8. 

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109 



tively to the likeness and image of the Christ. He 
transforms the life and service of the believer by the 
indwelling Christ. 

First The Spirit reveals to us the objective Christ. 
Jesus said : " He shall glorify me : for he shall re- 
ceive of mine and shall show it unto you." By 
spiritual illumination " we see J esus, who was made 
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of 
death, crowned with glory and honor." As we look 
upon Him from various angles of incidence, we be- 
hold different aspects of His salvation. Crushed 
beneath the burden of conscious guilt for sin, we be- 
hold Him as the Lamb of G od that hath taken away 
the sin of the world. And believing on Him who 
was delivered for our offenses and raised again for 
our justification, we have peace with God. As 
bound with infirmities, tried and tempted in the con- 
flicts of life, we learn to know Him as our High 
Priest who ever liveth to make intercession for us ; 
wherefore, also, He is able to save us unto the utter- 
most. Amid the perplexing mysteries of human 
experience we recognize Him as Lord who makes 
" all things work together for good unto us, because 
we love God and are called according to His purpose." 

The glorified Lord, seated on the throne of the 
universe, is God's revelation unto us of the final des- 
tiny of those who trust and obey God. Satan casts 
the shadows of gloom upon the pathway of humility, 
obedience, and suffering ; while he illumines with 
iridescent light the way of pride, self-will, and plea- 
sure. But Christ is the contradiction of the devil's 
lie. He humbled Himself, wherefore God also hath 



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highly exalted Him. He came to do the will of God, 
and was obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross: therefore God showed Him the pathway of 
life, and glorified Him to be the sovereign of the uni- 
verse. He went unflinchingly into the valley of 
suffering, and found it the crucible of eternal joy. 
Christ is God's answer to all the deepest yearnings 
and cries of the soul. From the changing experi- 
ences of life, wreathed with smiles or bathed in tears ; 
exultant with joy or girdled with pain ; calm in peace 
or broken in sorrow, the soul may look up to the 
exalted and enthroned Christ whom the Spirit re- 
veals, while He whispers encouragingly to the heart, 
" This is God's ideal, and thy destiny." And " He 
that hath begun a good work in you, will perform it 
until the day of Jesus Christ." 

Second. The Spirit of God conforms the believer 
into the likeness of Christ Jesus. " Beholding as in 
a glass the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into 
the same image ... as by the Lord the Spirit." 
This is done by a method having a threefold practice : 
the exercise of prayer; the study of God's Word ; 
and the obedience of faith. By the exercise of 
prayer we enter into the closet, which is the Chris- 
tian's most holy place, and are privileged to look 
upon the glory of the Lord. As Moses came from 
the presence of God his face shone with the reflected 
light of the Almighty. And in the true exercise of 
prayer, the virtue of Christ finds an entrance into our 
being, imparting to us His life with all its attributes 
of grace. In the study of the Word we discover the 
methods and purposes of God, and are able to learn 



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111 



the end from the beginning. In this exercise the 
heart is made to burn with " joy unspeakable and full 
of glory." In the obedience of faith we learn by 
practical experience the infinite resources of grace, 
which are ours in Christ. There is no experience, 
however adverse, but that in Christ there is a grace 
exactly suited and fully adequate for the need. 
Obedience simply links the believer to God, and 
makes a channel for the outlet of His riches in grace. 
And in this exercise we come to the last operation of 
the Spirit of God in the believer, viz. : 

Third. The transformation of the life by the in- 
dwelling Christ. It will help us greatly in practical 
daily living, if we learn that the Christian life cannot 
be lived by effort or imitation . We frequently pray 
for certain Christian graces, as though they were 
abstract quantities. Christian patience, fortitude, 
meekness, courage, and the whole round of virtues 
that make the sum total of the Christ-life, are attri- 
butes of Christ. Christ cannot part with His attri- 
butes. Light is the attribute of the sun : we cannot 
have light apart from the sun. We must have the 
sun to have its light. The same is true of the 
Christian life. " This is the record, that God hath 
given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He 
that hath the Son hath life." We cannot have His 
life apart from Him. Equally so with spiritual 
power: "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth," said Jesus. And we can have it only by 
having Him : " Lo ! I am with you always." 

Christian virtues, so requisite to our daily living, 
are not quantities subject to measure or avoirdupois. 



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They cannot be given as a clerk would measure with 
a yard-stick or weigh by the pound. They cannot 
be given to us as abstract gifts to be possessed by 
us apart from Christ Himself. But rather, " In Him 
dwelleth all the fullness of the G-odhead bodily. . . . 
In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of 
knowledge"; and God gives us Him, and all His 
attributes with Him. 

The glory of the New Testament salvation is, that 
Christ lives His life in the believer, and exercises His 
attributes through him. Two expressions of Paul 
are clear statements of this truth: " Nevertheless, I 
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me? 11 Work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling, for 
IT IS GOD THAT WORKETH IN YOU both to 
will and to do of His good pleasure." Numerous 
other scriptures might be quoted; but these suf- 
ficiently prove the method. There is in the believer 
a latent Christ, " Christ in you the hope of glory." He 
designs to live His own life in us. In the daily round 
of duties and obligations, we have but to fall back 
upon Him who dwells within us. 

In the trials of life we are not to dip out quantities 
of patience to pour upon the fires of temper ; nor to 
run back and forth receiving measured charges 
of power to meet besetting sin. But by faith we 
may open all the channels of our being, letting Him 
live His life in, and exercise His attributes through, 
us. It makes a wonderful difference whether I am 
living and working upon a supposed limited supply 
of grace, or whether I am simply an outlet for the 
infinite tide of His measureless glory. " He is made 



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113 



of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanc- 
tification, and redemption." Not give me patience, 
purity, humility j but exercise in me thy patience, 
purity, humility. 

The soul that falls back upon the indwelling Christ 
becomes transformed by Christ living through it. 
The conduct will be the outshining of His character; 
the speech will be His word and the energy His 
working. There will be about that life an atmos- 
phere that will compel men to take knowledge of it, 
that it has been with Jesus. And this is the true 
spiritual aim of every child of God — to yield our- 
selves to the ministry of the Spirit. For our own lives 
we should behold the objective, glorified Christ, the 
satisfaction of the soul's deepest desires. For God, we 
should by the Spirit be conformed to the likeness of 
His Son, that He may be well pleased in us. And 
for the world we should be transfigured by Christ in 
us, witnessing through us the glories of His grace 
and power. 



15 



THE MISSIONAEY CHAEACTEE OF 
THE THEOOP AVENUE CHUECH 
AS SHOWN IN ITS HISTOEY. 1 



Rev. NEWELL WOOLSEY WELLS. 

THE giving up of the self in sacrifice is the law 
of self -development. The grain of wheat must 
pass out of sight to its burial or abide alone. If it 
die, it is glorified by abundant fruition. It was the 
self-sacrifice of a woman, as well as the self-sacrifice 
of a God, that gave the world its Redeemer, and 
brought to her the divine title of "the Blessed," as the 
one highly favored among women. It has been self- 
sacrifice, the giving up of its blood and its treasure, 
that has developed the Church of Christ from the 
age of the apostles down to the present. When it 
has sought to live in and for itself its power has 
waned. When it has sought to share its possessions 
of grace and truth and life with a needy world, it has 
grown ever stronger. Such, too, has been the ex- 
perience of individual churches. Those that have 
had as their sole aim their own enrichment have 
miserably failed. Under the rule of Christ to live 
unto self means to die : to keep means to lose : to 
give means to get : to die unto self means to live. 
That is His law — a law as unalterable as that of the 



1 See page 9. 

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115 



Medes and Persians. " Give, and it shall be given 
unto you. 77 "There is that scattereth and yet in- 
creaseth. 77 " He that soweth bountifully shall reap 
also bountifully." Gibbon, in his History, tells us 
that "Edward, surnamed from his misfortune the 
Blind, from his virtues the Good,' 7 wrote this epitaph 
for the tomb in which he and his beloved wife Mabel 
were to sleep together : 

What we gave we have : 
What we spent we had : 
What we left we lost. 

Miserliness is ever misery — the misery of poverty, 
conscious poverty — whether in individual or in 
church. To spend time and energy in seeking to ac- 
cumulate for one 7 s self is to waste time and energy. 
Selfishness never yet made a profitable investment. 
" As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
so to them, 77 is the Golden Rule of our Master. Do for 
others if you would have God do for you, is the 
Golden Eule of Divine Providence. A church that 
recognizes as its mission the serving, not of itself, 
but of the world for which Christ gave Himself, that 
puts itself out at such service — a very striking ex- 
pression ! — that uses all its energies and its means 
in seeking the glory of God in the good of others, 
such a church is sure to grow stronger. 

Such a church has been this of yours. I desire to 
tell, very briefly, something of its story this evening, 
and the secret of its story. And this I do, not with 
the idea of fostering in you a spirit of self-satisfac- 



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tion, as though you had attained the ideal of Chris- 
tian service, but with the same motive that actuated 
the apostle when he wrote to the Presbyterian Church 
in Corinth — for, as you know, all apostolic churches 
were Presbyterian : " I know the forwardness of your 
mind, for which I boast of you to them of Mace- 
donia, that Achaia was ready a year ago ; and your 
zeal hath provoked very many." It is in the spirit 
of joying with you — congratulation, and in the hope 
of stimulating others to follow after you, that I speak 
of the Missionary Character of your Church as shown 
in its history. 

In telling a church's history one is under the ne- 
cessity of dealing more or less with figures. Figures 
are interesting or uninteresting, according to their 
character and suggestion. A lay figure, under what- 
ever circumstances, is decidedly uninteresting and 
always dry. A wax figure may have a little more 
interest because suggestive, at least, of life and ac- 
tion, and capable of melting. A man's figure pos- 
sesses considerable interest, I am told, at seaside 
resorts in the midsummer months; and a woman's 
figure has always supreme interest to men, and some- 
times — especially at Easter — to women too. The 
figures in a column of statistics are apt to be as 
musty as mummies, or as dry as last year's pine 
needles. But when they are felt to represent living 
men and women and children, or when they speak 
of human love and kindness, they are as eloquent as 
a robin's song, or an American Beauty in full bloom. 
I ask a mother how many children she has, and she 
answers: "Four on earth and three in heaven." 



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117 



There is nothing dry to her in snch statistics, nor do 
I find them so. 

Now I want to give yon a few fignres that are not 
lay fignres, nor wax figures, nor metaphorical figures, 
but figures that stand as real expressions of the life 
and love of this blessed Church ; figures that tell not 
all, but something of its story from the beginning 
until now. I trust you will not find them wearying. 

The first report made by this Church to the Gen- 
eral Assembly was in 1863. At that time your mem- 
bership was forty -five, of whom some remain to this 
present and some are fallen asleep. In addition to 
the sum of $3,179 contributed to the erection of a 
building for their own occupancy, they gave $7 to 
Home Missions and $41 to Foreign. So that this 
Church began its life very manifestly with the con- 
sciousness that it must not live to itself. Many an- 
other church under similar circumstances would 
have refused all outside work. It would have seemed 
enough to it to provide its own equipment. And 
many another church, acting so, has dug its own grave 
and entered it early in its history. Any church that 
shuts its windows and doors on the world without 
is in danger of asphyxiation. There were three 
other Church Boards besides those of Home and For- 
eign Missions in existence at the time of your or- 
ganization, to which during this first year no offering 
was made. But the next year every blank in the 
report appears filled, the contribution being $8 to 
Home Missions; $100 to Foreign; $107 to Educa- 
tion ; $6 to Publication, and $6 to Church Erection — 
a total of $227. And from that time to the present 



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you have not failed in a single instance to make your 
offering to these causes. 

Naturally, your smallest contributions were those 
of the first year. The largest were those of two years 
since, when your record was : $5,576 to Home Mis- 
sions ; $1,784 to Foreign j $652 to Education ; $471 to 
Publication ; $900 to Church Erection ; $565 to Min- 
isterial Relief ; $763 to Freedmen ; $478 to Aid for 
Colleges ; $74 to Synodical Aid ; and $730 to the Anni- 
versary Reunion Fund — a total of $11,993. Mean- 
while you had erected two church edifices for your 
own use and dedicated them without debt to the 
service of God. Apparently you believed, and rightly, 
I think, that the burden of a debt was not helpful to 
a spirit of devotion. One cannot well be uplifted 
when weighed down. How to consecrate a minus 
quantity to God is a problem that no church has 
ever yet solved. 

During the period that saw such a remarkable in- 
crease in your giving, your membership had grown 
from 45 to 913. In other words, your member- 
ship increased twenty-fold, while your giving in- 
creased fifty-three-fold. And let me say right here 
that my own conviction is not that your giving in- 
creased because of the increase in your membership, 
but that your membership increased because of the 
increase in your giving. God blessed you as you 
blessed others. 

From the first year onward the advance in your 
giving has been almost uninterrupted. True, there 
have been years when there has been a slight falling 
off in giving from those immediately preceding. 



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119 



But as it is a law of the natural world that there 
should be seasons of comparative rest from fruit- 
bearing, in which trees are acquiring new vigor for 
larger productiveness in subsequent seasons, so in 
your experience these let-up seasons seem to have 
been lay-up seasons in which you were getting ready 
for greater beneficence in seasons following them. 
We get a fairer idea of what you have done along 
this line by regarding your giving by decades. 

From 1868 to 1878 your total gifts to the Boards 
of our Church were $20,622 ; from 1878 to 1888, $45,- 
796 j from 1888 to 1898, $74,197; showing a steady 
and gratifying progress. Your total gifts to the 
Boards since your organization have been $150,171, 
of which amount $82,172 have gone to the Home 
Board, $28,035 to the Foreign, $39,964 being dis- 
tributed among the remaining Boards, all of which 
may really be called representatives of Home Mission 
work. Your gifts during last year to the various 
causes of benevolence almost equaled those of the 
first nine years of your church life. 

This is a remarkable story. It is an eloquent 
tribute to your system. For you have had a system. 
From the beginning of your existence you have 
made giving to outside causes of a missionary char- 
acter an essential part of your worship. Thirty-four 
out of the fifty-two Sabbaths of each year, at one of 
your services, you have considered the claims of the 
great field, which is the world, upon you ; of these 
thirty-four, seventeen have been devoted to the con- 
sideration of the causes represented by our Boards ; 
of these seventeen you have assigned twelve to the 



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two great Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, to 
which you give alternately on the first Sabbaths of 
the successive months. This system, backed by the 
undoubted fidelity of your pastor in presenting to 
you the claims of the several causes, has proved its 
own wisdom by the results secured. 

Now what has been the secret of this story which I 
have called remarkable ? It is unquestionably this : 

1. Your Church has recognized the binding obliga- 
tion resting upon it of the great commission of the 
Master: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature." You have felt the signifi- 
cance of His words Who while here declared, " I am 
the light of the world," but when He passed within the 
veil said to His disciples, " Ye are the light of the 
world.' 7 You have realized the meaning of the state- 
ment, "Ye are my witnesses"; have known that it 
is the Master's subpoena to you, and that you must 
give evidence for Him before the tribunal of the 
world, where He still stands on trial. Therefore 
it is that whoever prepared the topic on which 
I speak, rightly designated you a missionary 
people, who have given evidence of the missionary 
spirit that is in you. You are doing so as 
you are sending your members to work in the 
mission field. Your Mission School attests your 
missionary spirit. You have done so as you have 
sent of your members to colonize other sections 
of the city. Mount Olivet attests your missionary 
spirit. You are doing so as you meet statedly to 
consider the needs of and to pray for God's blessing 
upon the work of the Church at home and abroad. 



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121 



You are doing so as you pour out your treasures, as 
freely and lovingly as did she who broke the ala- 
baster box of precious ointment upon the feet of the 
Master. With other churches you have contributed 
to the establishment of not a few of the churches of 
this city. Your gifts have gone throughout the 
length and breadth of our land. What a story might 
be told could we follow the various streams of be- 
nevolence that have gone out from this living foun- 
tain to make fruitful many portions of the great 
Home Mission field ! What if we might cross the 
ocean and learn the blessings which your gifts have 
brought to souls in heathen lands ! That story we 
shall never know until He who forgets nothing opens 
His books and lets us see their record. Truly the 
Lord's house, built up of living stones, is filled with 
the odor of the ointment which you have lavished 
lovingly upon Him. For " inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me." 

2. Still again, you have shown by your history 
that as the interest of a church in the great outside 
field deepens, its interest in the welfare of its own 
land will deepen, too. It is never true that the less 
we do for the stranger, the more will we do for our 
own. On the contrary, as Isaac Errett once declared: 
" It is certain we will do less at home ; for in refus- 
ing to do anything abroad, we dwarf our sympathies, 
we blunt our consciences, we paralyze our faith, we 
smother our heroism, we enervate our philanthropic 
impulses, we gratify our selfishness; and we have 
less faith, less sympathy, less conscience, less hero- 
16 



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ism, less benevolence, to draw upon for the home 
work." The stream of your benevolence, like that 
which the prophet saw issuing from beneath the 
altar of sacrifice, has deepened and deepened with 
the progress of the years. The more you have done 
for "the regions beyond," the more you have been 
able to do, the more you have been inclined to do, 
the more you have done for the regions near at 
hand. You have found in large measure, if not in 
its fullness, what is the reflex influence of an intelli- 
gent interest in foreign missions. 

3. And yet again, and finally, this Church has 
shown not only its appreciation of its obligation 
under the great commission, but also its recognition 
of the truth — that growth in grace is proportioned 
to its systematic exercise. It has learned the secret 
of strength. 

The strength of a church does not depend upon 
its size, but upon its efficiency. There is such a 
thing as a bubble church. It rapidly — almost phe- 
nomenally — becomes larger and larger, seems to be 
doing splendidly. It delights in advertising its own 
attractiveness. It may be the breath of the preacher 
that is responsible for the increase of its proportions. 
He blows and blows, and it grows and grows, and 
wondering onlookers watch with interest the play 
and interplay upon its surface of the hues of the 
refracted sunlight of a passing popularity, when 
suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
there comes the sound of a faint explosion, and bub- 
ble and blower are left in a condition of complete 
collapse. Nothing, absolutely nothing, remains to 



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show that such a thing as a church ever existed ; 
nothing, unless, perhaps, some creditors muttering 
curses over an unpaid mortgage, a vacant lot adver- 
tised for sale, and infinitesimal particles of a very 
misty membership floating about somewhere in the 
social or ecclesiastical atmosphere. No strong church 
was ever yet developed from the blowing abilities of 
a so-called great preacher. 

But there is such a thing as a banian-tree church ; 
a church that has immortal life in it ; that spreads 
out its fruitful branches wider and wider ; branches 
that in turn send down roots to gather larger life 
from the soil in which it is planted ; every branch 
becoming a new trunk, until a whole city can rejoice 
in the shadow of it, and gather the fruit that it bears. 
The old trunk may die ; but each new trunk guaran- 
tees the perpetuation of the life that originally came 
from it. Such a church is this of yours, though the 
old trunk still retains abundant vitality. Once lit- 
tle more than a mission, it has become — yes, has ever 
been — missionary. Once a colony, it is now a State. 
It has found the secret of greatness as the Master 
announced it. " He who would be great among you, 
let him become your minister." Ministry is the se- 
cret of majesty in the kingdom of heaven; service, 
the secret of sovereignty. 

Thou shalt thyself be served 
By every sense of service which thou renderest. 

Every laborer for Christ is a crowned king. As a 
laboring Church of Christ you have proved your 



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royalty as well as your loyalty. And no man can 
take your crown. A crown of righteousness, it will 
not fade away. A crown of life, it will prove ama- 
ranthine. A crown of rejoicing, starred with re- 
deemed immortal souls, it will retain its beauty till 
the King comes to make up His jewels. In the lus- 
tre of His coronation as Lord of all, the gems which 
you have been, and are yet to be, instrumental in 
gathering from all the lands of earth, will play no 
insignificant part. And may His gracious Spirit, the 
Spirit of love, of light and of labor, continue with 
you abundantly to bless you, till, having made earth 
glad with your presence, you enter into the joy of 
your Lord. 



THE CHURCH AND FOREIGN 
MISSIONS. 1 



Mr. ROBERT E. SPEER. 

THERE are many general considerations under- 
lying the missionary movement, on the basis of 
which it makes appeal to all Christians in common. 
Among them are such as Mr. Wells was speaking of 
this evening, God's ideal with reference to the Church 
and His purpose for His people. Not as a body of 
people who are to enjoy themselves in spiritual sat- 
isfactions, holding jubilees now and then; not as a 
body of people whose chief purpose is to develop 
themselves, but as a body of missionary servants, 
God regards the Church of Christ. The last com- 
mand of Jesus Christ and the weight of woe that 
rests on this weary world are considerations of this 
same kind. If it only knew that it had been lifted 
1800 years ago by the Son of God! I say that 
these are general considerations that underlie the 
missionary movement, and on the basis of which it 
makes appeal to all Christians in common. By these, 

i See page 9. 

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as part of the great Christian body, we are bound to 
missionary service, if we would be true to Christ's 
ideal of us as a Church, if we would be true to His 
last entreaty and command, if we would be true to 
our fellow-men whom we must meet face to face on 
the day when J esus Christ shall test every man's life 
and work, of what sort they are. 

And yet, whether we like it or not, the great body 
of Christ's disciples is not a common body. I do not 
like it myself. I do not believe that Jesus Christ 
means His people to be broken up into divers fami- 
lies, holding often antagonistic views and often quar- 
reling with each other over the various lines of 
division. But whether we deprecate it or not, sepa- 
rated we are. We are divided up into regiments, divi- 
sions, and brigades, and each party of us has its 
own functions, its own responsibilities, its own op- 
portunities. And I can think of no more fitting 
subject for such a Jubilee Service as this, than that 
we, as members of this Presbyterian body of Chris- 
tians, into which most of us were born, into which 
others of us have come, shall stop for a little while to 
think of God's special missionary call to us. 

We are regarded often as a rather narrow-minded 
people, set upon maintaining certain old boundaries 
and limitations. It is a great misconception. There 
is no body of people in all this world that has been 
so reckless almost in spreading itself over the world 
as ours. We are almost the only missionary agency 
in the world that has planted its missions on every 
continent, in the face of every non-Christian religion. 
The American Baptist Missionary Union has planted 



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its missions alongside of us, with the exception that 
it has none in South America, and has none to Islam. 
The Methodists stand side by side with us in South 
America, but they leave us standing alone in the 
lands that are distinctively Moslem. The American 
Board stands with us before Islam, but has no mis- 
sion in South America. Our Church has sent its 
missionaries to every continent save Europe, and set 
them down before every religion, and planted the 
banners of Christ, which we are bound to defend, in 
almost every great country in the world. Just let 
us run over the countries for a moment. Japan, 
Korea, all China, from north to south, Siam, Laos, 
Syria, India, Persia, West Africa, Colombia, Vene- 
zuela, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala — in all have 
we now planted our missionaries, with instructions 
soon to be sent for one of our China missionaries to 
go over into the Philippines as well. 

Let us note secondly not only the amount of earth 
that we have appropriated for our missionary fields, 
but the number of souls that are to be found in these 
fields. I have heard missionary appeals in behalf of 
territory inhabited by prairie dogs, or of large tracts 
of uncultivated country, or of acres of desert in the 
United States or in Africa. Let us have done with 
that. We have in our mission fields abroad, multi- 
tudes upon multitudes of souls as the peculiar heri- 
tage and responsibility of our Church. We were 
among the first of all missionary agencies to settle 
in Japan. Of the 40,000,000 of people in Japan, I 
suppose that fully one fourth are to be reached, if at 
all, by the Church of Christ established by our Pres- 



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byterian and Kefornied Missions. Of the 12,000,000 
of people in Korea to whom we were the first to send 
missionaries, I suppose at least one half or two thirds 
are chargeable to us for their knowledge of the gos- 
pel. Of the 400,000,000 in China, we have assumed 
large burdens of responsibility for the 18,000,000 of 
the capital province of Chih-li, for the 36,000,000 of 
Shantung, for the 11,000,000 of Che-kiang, and the 
21,000,000 in the province of Kiang-su, through 
which the Yangtse-Kiang River runs and empties 
into the Yellow Sea. For millions of An-hui, with 
its 32,000,000 lying just to the west of Kiang-su, 
and of the 30,000,000 of the province of Hu-nan, for 
a large portion of the 30,000,000 of Quang-tung, 
and for all of the 1,500,000 of Hainan, we shall have 
in God's judgment to be answerable. The whole 
population of Siam and Laos is dependent upon us, 
with the whole northern half of Persia, with more 
than half of the total Persian population of 9,000,000, 
and millions more of the vast population of India, 
equal to twice that of North and South America 
combined, with forty millions added. I forbear to 
speak of the millions of other lands. It might be 
contended, I think, that not less than 150,000,000 
souls are dependent upon us for the gospel. These are 
not figures only of which I have now been speaking. I 
have been speaking of living souls, in comparison 
with which there is nothing worthy of consideration 
in this world. We deem ourselves bound especially 
to defend this Bible. God knows we love this Book. 
We would give anything for its defense. But how 
many Bibles will we stand confronting on the Judg- 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



129 



ment Day? Will there be Bibles there? There will 
be souls there. We shall be answerable on that day 
for every one of the 150,000,000 of people through- 
out the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary field, — 150,- 
000,000 who must go down to Christless graves or 
hear of Christ from us, — 150,000,000 who walk in 
darkness now around our mission stations, in igno- 
rance of the great altar stairs that lead up to God, — 
ignorant because we have never been willing to un- 
seal their blind eyes and turn their stumbling feet 
toward God. 

And we must look upon this question of our pecu- 
liar responsibility also from another point of view, 
more particular and specific than this general, com- 
prehensive vision. Of the 955,000 low-caste people 
in the Bombay field in India, barely 6,000 can read 
and write — barely two thirds of one per cent, of 
that nearly 1,000,000 souls could read the words of 
Jesus, " For God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
Him might not perish, but have everlasting life/' if 
they were blazoned on the sky in the Bombay Presi- 
dency. The most illiterate State in this country is 
Louisiana, and fifty-four per cent, of the people in 
Louisiana can read and write. The most illiterate 
section of our people are the negroes of New Mexico, 
and nearly twenty per cent, of these are literates ac- 
cording to the census of 1890. Think of a picture of 
need like this described in a letter several years ago 
from Mainpuri, India: "In the Mainpuri district 
there are 295 towns with from five hundred to one 
thousand inhabitants; 129 towns with from one 
17 



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thousand to two thousand inhabitants; 39 towns 
with from two thousand to three thousand inhabi- 
tants; 11 towns with from 3,000 to 5,000 inhabi- 
tants ; 6 towns with from 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. 
In most of these the gospel may have been preached 
two or three times during the last fifteen or twenty 
years, but there are 900 (or, more exactly, 897) villages 
in this district with less than 500 inhabitants to 
each, and how can the gospel light shine in all this 
district and in this multitude of crowded villages 
and towns, with so few to bear it and with the home 
Board ordering reductions in the estimates given? 
Here I am, with an imperfect knowledge of the lan- 
guage, alone in a district about thirty miles square, 
with 801,216 inhabitants scattered in 1,379 towns 
and villages ; Etah also under my care, with 1,489 
towns, etc., and 756,525 inhabitants." 

I think of the 879 villages out over which I looked 
once last summer a year ago with Mr. Fulton, in the 
missionary field of southern China. As far as the 
eye could reach to the north, east, south and west, 
those 879 villages extended, one or two millions of 
souls, I suppose, in them ; the shadow of a Christless 
night weighing upon them ; waiting in the darkness 
for a Saviour of whom they will never hear save 
from those whom we will send. 

And God's peculiar call to us in this matter of 
missionary service is not depending only upon the 
territory that we have marked off as our own, and 
the millions of souls for whom we are responsible. 
It must be measured, in some degree, by the strength 
of the summons which Grod's blessing upon our past 



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131 



labor brings to us in these closing days of our cen- 
tury. It is true that in many missionary fields we 
are carrying on what must appear to the human 
gaze as a hopeless enterprise. We have some hard 
and difficult fields. We have never sought the easy 
places. We are building in the midst of a night for 
a day that shall dawn. We are watching not alone 
for results in present years: we are laying the 
foundations also for the generations and the ages 
that are before us, and we are doing this in the face 
of checks and discouragements until some day our 
patient labor shall bear its fruit. We were for some 
years in China before our first little church was 
formed. Sixty years ago there were about a score 
of Christians in our missions in China. In the next 
decade that score had grown to one hundred and 
forty; in the next ten it had grown to eight hun- 
dred, in the next ten to twenty-four hundred, in the 
next ten to eight thousand. In Korea our first con- 
vert was baptized in 1888. Last year our churches 
contained 932 communicants, while but a few months 
ago a college classmate of mine who is a missionary in 
Korea, came back from two itinerating trips having 
received three hundred church members and nearly 
one thousand probationers who are as good almost 
as our church members here at home. Two of our 
first converts in Laos were clubbed to death for re- 
nouncing Buddhism. Each of those two is now 
represented by more than one thousand communi- 
cants. In the Canton mission alone during the past 
year as many converts have been received into the 
churches as were produced by the first quarter of a 



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century of our work in all China. God has poured 
out his blessing upon our work. His blessing sum- 
mons us. 

And I think that His blessing is shown to us most 
clearly not in what we have yet done, but in what 
we may do, and in the opportunities that he has 
given to us. After all, as Browning says, " 'T is not 
what man does that exalts him, but what man would 
do." It is not what we have accomplished by God's 
blessing, but what we are yet to accomplish, that 
should fill our thoughts. What God has opened 
before us the possibility of doing is more glorious 
than our attainment. Think only of our opportu- 
nities in China ! A race of 400,000,000 of people — 
the finest natural race on the face of the world, just 
opening as never in all the years before j a race with 
natural characteristics far in advance, some think, 
of ours ; a race that falls short of us chiefly in this, 
— that it is not so fond of blood and fighting as 
we 5 a race that some hold will be able, in almost 
every point that is worthiest, to outstrip our race. 
For, after all, what traits of character are highest ? 
The traits of mastery or the traits of service ? Who 
rules the world but the One who said of Himself, 
"I am among you as one who serveth," who came 
down, though He was rich, to make Himself poor 
and become the servant of all % In all these charac- 
teristics of industry, of patience, of frugality, of 
sense of responsibility, the Chinese race is in ad- 
vance of ours. What can compare with the oppor- 
tunity that God has opened before us in these latter 
days in China, — the opportunity to mould and shape 



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133 



and use for Him and His Church one fourth the 
population of the world now coming forth from 
seclusion ? 

I should like to add to what I have been saying 
one other thing. I have spoken of the field which 
God's blessing has opened to us, and our present op- 
portunity as marking God's indication of His will 
toward us as a missionary Church. May I say one 
last word about God's indication of His will to us in 
the power to fulfil His will that He has given to us f 
We have 225 ordained missionaries out on the for- 
eign field for our parish, our Presbyterian parish, 
of 150,000,000 of souls— about one to every 700,000. 
We have at home nearly 9,000 ministers, licentiates 
and theological students, for a field, say, — to be gen- 
erous, — of one eighth of the population of the United 
States. That is assuming a disproportionate share 
of it, perhaps, as ours, but let us say that 9,000,000 
Americans constitute our home mission field ; 150,- 
000,000 of Asia, Africa and Central and South Amer- 
ica constitute our foreign field. One man to his 
700,000 abroad, — that man standing alone ; few 
Sabbath-school helpers; no Christian agencies; no 
great influence surrounding him working towards 
Christianity. One man to his 1,000 at home, but- 
tressed and supported on every side by Christian 
workers, Christian papers, Christian agencies of all 
sorts working with him. What account shall we 
give of our stewardship when we stand on that great 
day before these 150,000,000 on one side, with 9,000,- 
000 on the other ? We shall know in that day, if we 
do not know it now, that we owe to that 150,000,000 



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not one iota less of Christ's gospel than we acknow- 
ledge we owe to the 9,000,000 here about us at home. 

And as for the money needed to carry on this 
work, we have it in abundance. I read in one of the 
morning papers the other day the statement of our 
imports and exports for this current calendar year. 
By the time this year ends, we shall have sold other 
nations a thousand million dollars' worth of goods, 
and we shall have bought from other nations five 
hundred million dollars 7 worth. By the end of this 
year the balance of trade in our favor will be five 
hundred million dollars for the year. We have 
taken out of the pockets of the world, five hundred 
million dollars during this year. We give back to 
the world less than five million dollars 7 worth of 
Christ's Grospel. One per cent, of the balance of 
trade in our favor this year would exceed all that 
the Christians of this land will manage to gather 
together to give to Christ this year for the spread of 
the Gospel in the lands beyond the seas, for whose 
millions, as truly as for us, Christ lived and died. 

This is what we are looking out over, the present 
and past, this J ubilee night. What are Jubilee nights 
for ? Nice occasions when we praise ourselves con- 
tentedly ? There is doubtless a utility in that pro- 
ceeding. But, after all, what is the past but a prepa- 
ration for the future ? The past is nothing in itself. 
The question is not as to whether we are proud of 
the past. The question is, Will the past be proud 
of us? The great question for every man is not 
what sort of a man was his grandfather. The great 
question is what kind of a man is his grandfather's 



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135 



grandson. It is of very little concern what we did 
in the past. The great question is what we propose 
to do in the days to come. 

Holy things the great past promised, 
Noble dreams both strange and new ; 

But the present shall fulfil them, 
What he promised she shall do. 

And all the past would be failure and worse than 
failure if it were not a stepping-stone to larger and 
purer and nobler and greater things in years to 
come. Let all that God has enabled this church to 
do in these years that are gone, as Mr. Wells pre- 
sented it to us in that noble record ; let all that God 
has accomplished through us in this great world in 
the years past ; let all the honor and the solemnity 
of the unexampled responsibility that He is laying 
upon us in these present days j let all these things 
be but as the voice of Him who came, not to destroy 
but to save the world, calling us to a new loyalty to 
Him and to His cause, — loyalty which, by the grace 
of God, shall make us ready to sacrifice and serve, 
shall make us dissatisfied with all small sacrifice and 
service until we have won our part in the triumph 
of that day when no man any more in all this world 
shall need to grope blindly for the light that has 
already dawned. 



THE JUBILEE OUTLOOK SERMON. 1 



LATENT MORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER — 
ITS DEVELOPMENT AND USE. 



Rev. ROBT. G. HUTCHINS, D.D. 



OUR committee upon programme has wisely 



JL foreordained for this morning an " Outlook Ser- 
vice." It has been a royal delectation for us to review 
such multiplied triumphs as have, during the last 
quarter of a century, crowned your united labors as 
Pastor and People. But the principal and abiding 
advantage of such a retrospect is the motive and the 
momentum which you may gather from it for future 
achievement. It were not well to linger too long nor 
too lovingly among the hallowed memories. The wor- 
ship of the golden calf was idolatry. The worship 
of a golden past is idolatry. I esteem it an unspeak- 
able privilege to have here renewed the friendships 
of former years, to have greeted your later workers, 
and to have rejoiced with you all, in all your re- 
joicing. But this morning I feel a profound and 
prayerful sense of responsibility in attempting to 
bring you inspiration for the coming days. 

I can perhaps do nothing better for you than faith- 
fully to remind you of the vast resources of useful- 




1 See page 10. 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



137 



ness which even now, after all the years of your 
religious culture and labor, remain undeveloped 
among you. 

I have therefore chosen for my topic " Latent 
Moral and Spiritual Power — its Development and 
Use 77 : a topic derived from the twenty-fifth chapter 
of Matthew's gospel, the fourteenth and fifteenth 
verses : 

"For it is as when a man, going into another 
country, called his own servants, and delivered unto 
them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, 
to another two, to another one ; to each according to 
his several ability; and he went on his journey." 

These goods were not a developed, but an unde- 
veloped possession. They were like a farm that must 
be tilled in order to be productive. They were like 
a mine that must be worked in order to be remuner- 
ative. These talents were not talents in their fruit- 
age, but seed talents. In the one there was another 
one hidden away ; in the two there were two others 
secreted ; in the five there were five more lying latent. 

These goods and talents represent whatsoever we 
possess which may be turned to moral and spiritual 
uses. We therefore legitimately infer from the text 
the topic we have indicated : " Latent Moral Power 
— its Development and Use." 

Should you ask me what I mean by Latent Moral 
Power, it would be easy to answer : " Power lying in 
an undeveloped state 77 ; but here illustrations may 
serve us a better purpose than definitions. 

Let us observe some illustrations of latent material 
18 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



power, and then we shall the better understand the 
nature of moral and spiritual energy. 

We see, for example, the great force of steam 
dragging innumerable passengers, countless tons of 
freight, over continents and oceans ; and yet neither 
Watt, nor Fulton, nor Stephenson added any new 
power to steam ; they simply developed and applied 
a power which had always lain latent in it. 

We have taught electricity to be our swift-footed 
messenger over the land and through the sea; we 
have harnessed it to our carriages, and found it 
swifter than the race-horse, and as gentle as the 
family steed ; but neither Franklin, nor Morse, nor 
Field, nor Edison has added any new power to elec- 
tricity: these men have simply developed and ap- 
plied a power which has always lain latent in it. 

I hold in my hand a pound of coal. I am told 
that that pound of coal, when applied through steam 
to machinery, will be equal in its energy to the labor 
of a working-man for one day, so that three hundred 
pounds of coal would be just about equivalent to the 
labor of a working-man for a year. Now what vast 
deposits of latent material power there must be in 
the ten thousand square miles of coal-fields in the 
State of Ohio ; in the two hundred thousand square 
miles of coal-fields in the United States ! 

We now, dear friends, understand the nature of 
latent material power. 

Within every responsible human being there is 
another sort of latent power — the power of faith, 
of love, of hope, of righteousness, of Christian help- 
fulness. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



139 



In 1714 a man-child was born in Gloucester, Eng- 
land. At the age of fourteen he might have been 
seen in an inn, with a blue apron tied about his 
waist, drawing beer from the tap for the customers, 
or scrubbing the bar-room floor. But within the 
breast and brain of this boy there lies a power that 
by and by shall flame forth in holy eloquence; a 
power that shall bear him like a flaming seraph from 
continent to continent, having the everlasting Gos- 
pel to preach; a power that shall hold spellbound 
twenty thousand people on Boston Common, three 
times twenty thousand people on Moorflelds, Eng- 
land: for this boy is none other than George 
Whitefield. 

In 1739, or thereabouts, in an old building for- 
merly used as a foundry, there stands a young man, 
with the mien of a gentleman and a scholar, a man 
of fluent speech, but with less of eloquence than 
Whitefield, within whom dwells a power which shall 
yet organize that magnificent religious order which 
we call Methodism, a denomination that has since 
penetrated not only the great centres of population, 
but remote mountain hamlets, and has dotted the 
globe with its missionary stations: for this young 
man is John Wesley. 

In 1483 a child was born in Saxony. In his ma- 
turity he said, " My father was a peasant, my grand- 
father was a peasant, all my forefathers were 
peasants. My poor mother brought wood from the 
forest upon her back for the family baking.' 7 And 
yet in the breast and brain of this infant there 
dwells a power that shall shake the whole world in 



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the German Reformation: for this child is Martin 
Luther. 

We now understand the nature of latent moral 
and spiritual power. 

Should you ask me more specifically concerning 
the characteristics of this power, I should answer, it 
is not, strictly speaking, power on deposit, but power 
in germ. Indeed, it may be questioned whether 
there is any such thing as power on deposit. Certain 
it is that all power is God's power. To annihilate 
the material and the moral universe He would need 
to issue no fiat. He would need only to withdraw 
his sustaining hand. He upholdeth all things by the 
word of His power. 

I hold in my hand a little dark three-cornered seed. 
I '11 drop it under my window in the spring-time. In 
a few weeks my trellis is covered all over with beau- 
tiful morning-glories. It was a little seed, and yet 
the far-off sun was mindful of it and sent it heat ; 
the great ocean was mindful of it and sent it mois- 
ture j the laboratory of the earth went to work in its 
behalf. All the beauty on my trellis was once 
bound up in the seed. But it needed to wait upon 
sun and sea and earth for its development. 

The latent moral power of which I speak is not a 
power which can count God out, but which for its 
development must count God in — God's Spirit, God's 
Providence, God's Word. 

Latent moral power is exceedingly various in form 
and degree. There is power in this right hand; 
there is also power in my right eye. But how dis- 
similar the power of the hand from the power of the 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



141 



eye! The members of Christ's body have gifts 
differing. 

There is no responsible being who is utterly des- 
titute of this power. 

It seems to me that the saddest plaint in all the 
Scriptures is that of poor Esau, when he has been 
robbed by Jacob of his birthright and of his fa- 
ther's blessing. " Hast thou but one blessing, my 
father ? bless me, even me also, O my father." That 
was " a great and exceeding bitter cry." No child of 
God needs to take up that wail. God is not so poor 
that He needs to disinherit any one of His children. 

There is a pride that apes humility, which whines 
out in prayer-meetings, " I have no talents." That 
is a libel against God. 

None can tell what power God has put into a man 
until that power has been brought out of him. 
Years ago, when the eloquent Dr. Kirk was pastor 
of Mount Vernon Church, Boston, there sat in the gal- 
lery a dull-faced boy, who slept regularly throughout 
the service — through the wonderful preaching of the 
pastor, through the tender-toned, fervent prayers, 
through the splendid music of the choir. But one 
Sabbath, as Dr. Kirk was closing the last prayer, the 
stupid boy rubbed his eyes to wakefulness in time to 
hear the closing words, "For Christ's sake, Amen." 
He walked homeward wondering what Dr. Kirk could 
mean by those words. Reaching his solitary cham- 
ber, he continued to ask himself the question, " What 
did Dr. Kirk mean by saying, 'For Christ's sake, 
Amen'?" At last the meaning pierced his stolid 
brain, and throwing himself upon his knees before 



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God, the youth gave himself up for Christ's sake. 
In stammering language, murdering the Queen's Eng- 
lish, he commenced informally to preach the Gospel. 
In answer to his appeals, multitudes gave themselves 
to Christ. He went across the sea and won ten thou- 
sand souls for his Redeemer. He has gone from 
strength to strength till now all Christendom is 
thanking God for the work which D wight L. Moody 
has done "for Christ's sake," and the angels of 
heaven shout " Amen ! " 

Sunday-school teacher, despair of no humblest 
child in your class, however unpromising and stupid. 
God may have intrusted to you the development of 
another Moody. 

But let us now ask what great reasons are there 
for the development of our Latent Moral and Spiri- 
tual Power. You will agree with me that it would 
have been an unutterable calamity to the world had 
Luther, in his day, squandered his talents, or left 
them done up in a napkin. You will agree with me 
that there was in the social conditions of the eigh- 
teenth century great need for the development of the 
resources of Whitefield and Wesley. 

Let us bear in mind that it may make a great dif- 
ference to the well-being of this sorrowful earth 
whether you and I make of ourselves " vessels meet 
and sanctified for the Master's use." 

To keep up the old-time battle between good and 
evil we need to bring out of us all the Moral Energy 
that is in us. 

" For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, 
but against the principalities, against the powers, 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



143 



against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the 
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." 

Look upon a missionary map and you will see that 
Christendom is only a green pasture-land, diked off 
from the wide-spread sea of heathenism and false re- 
ligions. We need to develop our latent power to 
keep up the dikes. Should the Church of Christ at 
any point diminish its labors, wickedness would come 
in like a flood. If in the city of Brooklyn the 
churches should become extinct for fifty years, you 
would have here practical heathenism — civilized 
heathenism indeed, but heathenism nevertheless, 
pure and simple. 

To heal the wounds that sin has made, the power 
that is in us must be brought out of us. The war of 
evil that has been going on through the millenniums 
has not left the world unscathed. I remember to 
have read a letter by Grace Greenwood, written from 
the field of Waterloo. " Just where the battle raged 
most fiercely," she says, " I found a modern dwelling, 
with children playing about it, and in the yard flow- 
ers blooming, nourished by the blood of the slain." 
Reading this, I said to myself, " This is what we want 
to do for the sad old battle-field of earth. We want 
to make it a good place for fathers and mothers and 
little children to dwell in, a garden in which the 
plants of righteousness shall blossom." 

In the city of my recent labor, I once ascended the 
bluffs overlooking the smoke-shrouded town, and for 
a moment imagined that the roofs were lifted from 
the houses not only, but from all the human hearts 
as well in the great city. I seemed to see the dispir- 



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ited wives of drunken husbands, the broken-hearted 
mothers of dissolute sons ; all the poverty and sor- 
row and distress which sin had made. how I 
wished, at that moment, that I had a thousand times 
the strength which God had given me, to alleviate, to 
comfort and to bless ! 

We need to develop our latent moral power that 
we may open up again the beneficent wells which the 
fathers digged, but which the enemy has filled up. 
You remember how Isaac went down into the Yalley 
of Gerar and reopened the wells which his father 
Abraham had digged, but which the Philistines had 
stopped up. We inherited from our fathers the 
fountain of Domestic Purity, but the Philistines 
have clogged and polluted its flow. The vast num- 
ber of divorces which disgrace our court records are 
only hints of the wide-spread degeneracy of the 
American home. 

We need to open up again the old well of Chris- 
tian Democracy, which our fathers sunk, and from 
which they drank such deep, invigorating draughts. 
The vast multiplication and practical omnipotence 
of wicked monopolies and trusts ; the great cleavage 
between the rich and the poor, between capital and 
labor ; the poverty and squalor of multitudes among 
our working-classes, — these are an appeal for the 
developed faith, and courage, and fortitude of the 
Church of God. 

A profound reverence for the Sabbath has hitherto 
been a distinguishing characteristic of the English- 
speaking race. But the old fountain of a hallowed 
Sabbath is already largely filled up by the imported 
Sunday hilarities of continental Europe, by the greed 



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145 



of railroad corporations and manufacturing concerns. 
Who imagines that the task of reopening this foun- 
tain can be anything less than herculean ? 

The fathers bequeathed us the fountain of tem- 
perance. They certainly never dreamed of the mul- 
tiplied curses and horrors of the modern saloon, 
crowding with its victims immense almshouses, in- 
sane asylums and prisons, and filling our institutions 
for the idiotic with the offspring of drunkards. They 
never dreamed of the Saloon, which controls political 
parties, ordains legislation, and buys up or terrorizes 
courts of justice. 

Not until these ancient fountains are opened up 
again can the Church of God sing, with full exulta- 
tion, the Psalmist's Song : " There is a river, the 
streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, 
the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High." 
May the Lord multiply our power to match our 
emergency ! 

Moreover, we must either put our talents to the 
exchangers for their increase, or must stand baffled 
before the gigantic missionary task which God has 
assigned us. Our Saviour, just before His departure 
from earth, said to His apostles, " When the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you, ye shall be my witnesses 
both in J erusalem, and in Judaea, and Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth." " In Jerusa- 
lem." To us this suggests our great work in the 
evangelization of the city. " In Judsea." To us this 
suggests our stupendous Home Missionary work, 
through which, in our own frontier communities, 
we must anticipate or supplant the saloon and the 
brothel by the church and the school. " In Samaria." 
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To us this suggests our duty to the formerly de- 
spised and neglected classes, to the Indian, to the 
Chinaman, to the Freedman. " The uttermost part 
of the earth." To us this suggests our Foreign 
Missionary stint, on the plains of India, in the cities 
of China, in the isles of the Pacific. 

There is a legend, which one of our poets has done 
into verse, of an old monk who, while saying his de- 
votions in his darkened cell, was visited by a vision 
of the Saviour. The old man's soul was suffused 
with holy joy. Just then the convent bell rang a 
signal for him to distribute alms at the gate. But 
he answered, "I cannot leave this Divine Vision, I 
cannot leave my Saviour." Again the convent bell 
rings. Again the monk replies, " Hush thy voice, O 
duty, and suffer me to enjoy my Saviour." But the 
third ringing of the bell lifts him from his knees, 
and he hastens to the gate to perform his service of 
charity. All slowly and solemnly he returns to his 
cell, expecting to find the vision departed ; but lo ! 
it remains, and is more resplendent than before, and 
from the lips of the Saviour come these words, 
" Hadst thou tarried, I would have fled." At our 
gates, beloved, stands not a little group of hungry 
mendicants, but a world starving for the Bread of 
Life. In our closets we may see visions of our 
Saviour j but he only shall retain such visions who 
rises, at the call of Duty, to feed the perishing 
millions. 

We have now seen how immense and urgent is the 
need for the development of our latent moral power, 
and it is time to ask, " How can this power be de- 
veloped ? " 



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147 



There are implements for the cultivation of the 
soil $ there are implements for the development of a 
mine ; and there are implements for mining power 
out of a man. Such an implement is consecration. 
Let him who would be powerful give all that he is 
and hopes to be, all that he has and hopes to have, to 
the Lord, who bought him with His blood. But, you 
ask, " How can one grow rich in strength, who gives 
away all that he possesses ? n A somewhat similar 
query once arose in the mind of Peter, when he said, 
" We have left all to follow Thee. What shall we re- 
ceive?" Wait a minute, Peter, and I will answer 
thee what thou shalt receive. Thou shalt have as 
thy requital the privilege of companying three 
blessed years with thy Lord and Master. Thou shalt 
see Him heal the sick, restore the blind to sight, 
raise the dead to life, and still the stormy waters of 
Gennesaret. Thou shalt have the honor of preach- 
ing the Pentecostal sermon, under which three thou 
sand souls shall be born into the kingdom in a single 
day. Thou shalt have the inspiration to write epis- 
tles the world will never let die. And when thou 
hast finished thy work on earth, thou shalt enter, 
through the gate of martyrdom, into the gates of 
glory. Art thou satisfied, Peter? Dost thou want 
back thy house at Capernaum, and the old fishing- 
boats and nets ? And what wast thou, Peter ? Thou 
wast a swearing fisherman, down by the Sea of Gali- 
lee. And what hast thou become ? A foremost apos- 
tle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a glorified saint in 
Heaven, whose name adorns the grandest temple upon 
earth. 

That saintly young woman, Harriet Newell, who 



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at nineteen consecrated her life to the foreign mis- 
sionary work, and who died before she reached the 
field of her labor, sent back from her death-bed this 
message to her mother : 

" Tell my mother that her Harriet never regretted 
any sacrifice she ever made for the Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

Beloved, none of us will ever regret any sacrifice 
he has ever made for the Lord J esus Christ. 

My honored brother in Christ, and in the Gospel 
ministry, this Jubilee has been filled with exultation, 
but I very well know that during the last quarter of 
a century you have not rested upon a bed of roses. 
As to-day you review your pastoral trials and your 
labors abundant, tell me, do you now regret any 
sacrifice you have ever made for the Lord Jesus 
Christ! And you, beloved brethren, who from the 
founding of Throop Avenue Mission Sunday School 
through nearly half a century have here surrendered 
personal comfort and indulgence for the uplifting, 
guarding, and saving of your fellow-men, tell me, 
do you now regret any sacrifice you have ever made 
for the Lord Jesus Christ f 

Another implement for mining out power from 
the human soul is Christian trust. To be strong for 
service we need to be relieved from carking cares. 
We need 

A heart at leisure from itself, 
To soothe and sympathize. 

We need to cast our care on Him who careth for us. 



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149 



At the Battle of Crecy, Edward the Black Prince, 
who was but a youth, was set to lead the van. His 
father, the king, was stationed upon a hilltop with 
reinforcements. Being hard pressed, the prince sent 
to his father for succor. No help came. A second 
messenger was sent, who bore a more urgent appeal. 
No reinforcements came. A third messenger was 
sent to the king, and then the king replied : " Tell 
my son, that I am not so inexperienced a commander 
as not to know when succor is necessary, nor so in- 
considerate a father as not to send it when it is 
necessary." You can never call him a weak man, 
who amidst the battle of life feels sure that the om- 
nipotent God is his father, who has divine skill to 
detect the hour of real need, and with divine love to 
supply that need. 

Time fails me to dwell upon other means for the 
development of latent moral power. You will read- 
ily remind yourselves of what love and labor for 
God and fellow-men may do for you towards this 
great end. 

But I must, dear friends, before closing, say a 
word concerning the use of developed spiritual 
power. It is too precious and costly, too heavenly 
in its origin, too beneficent in its applications to be 
squandered or injudiciously used. Moral and spir- 
itual power should, like steam, be applied as soon as 
generated. You remember that the manna of the 
Israelites could not be kept on deposit ; at least only 
the Sabbath supply could be so kept. The unused 
manna soon became offensive. Nothing grows stale 
and worthless more quickly than an idle Christian 



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experience. Indeed, unused power speedily lapses 
into paralysis and impotency. Spiritual power 
should be used with discrimination as to its objects. 
It is too sadly needed to be devoted to barren enter- 
prises. It should be used also with concentration of 
energy. 

We should gain the consent and cooperation of 
all our faculties for the work Providence assigns us. 
There should be no misgivings, no holding back, 
but whole-hearted enthusiasm of endeavor. So much 
concerning the use of our developed spiritual re- 
sources. 

We have seen how much hangs, even here on 
earth, upon the multiplication and use of our talents. 
But there is a consideration beyond this. Eternal 
issues depend upon fidelity to our stewardship. By 
and by the Lord will come and reckon with us. If 
one has taken his talent and hid it in a napkin, and 
for his self-defense has to stammer out the old libel 
against his Lord, — "I knew thee that thou art a 
hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and 
gathering where thou didst not scatter ; and I was 
afraid, and went away and hid thy talent in the 
earth ; lo, thou hast thine own," — he will be in- 
effably and eternally ashamed of himself. 

But he who can at last say, — " Lord, thou deliv- 
eredst unto me two talents; lo, I have gained other 
two talents/ 7 — or, — " Thou deliveredst unto me five 
talents; lo, I have gained other five talents," — he 
will not dread, but welcome the coming of his Lord, 
and with rapture hear, — " Well done " — not great 
or brilliant — but " good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



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151 



Beloved, we have for this hour stood together on 
this Mount of Outlook, this Jubilee Pinnacle of Vi- 
sion. The inspiration of transfiguring motives is 
upon us. We descend together to the work God 
assigns to us. The Future claims you — all you are, 
all you can be, all you have, all you may have. To 
you God has here given a magnificent field for Chris- 
tian operations. The momentum of a wonderful 
past is pressing you onward. The greatness of your 
ever-increasing responsibilities need not appal you, 
for " as your day is, so shall your strength be." 

If ever for one faltering moment you sigh, — " Who 
is sufficient for these things?" the next moment 
shall be one of triumph, and you shall shout exul- 
tantly, "I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." 

Be more solicitous to do the Lord's work than to 
secure immunity from struggle and trial. Calmly 
confide all your sacred interests into His keeping, 
and above all things, seek to do the will of Him who 
hath sent you. Amid all your toils keep yourselves 
in the love and peace of God, and with the lamented 
Dean Alford trustfully sing, 

I know not if or dark or bright 

Shall be my lot ; 
If that wherein my hopes delight 

Be best or not. 

It may be mine to drag for years 

Toil's heavy chain ; 
Or day and night my meat be tears 

On bed of pain. 



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Dear faces may surround my hearth 

With smiles and glee ; 
Or I may dwell alone, and mirth 

Be strange to me. 

My bark is wafted from the strand 

By breath divine j 
And on the helm there rests a hand 

Other than mine. 

One who has known in storms to sail 

I have on board ; 
Above the raging of the gale 

I have my Lord. 

He holds me when the billows smite ; 

I shall not fall. 
If sharp, 'tis short, if long, 'tis light ; 

He tempers all. 

Safe to the land ! Safe to the land ! 

The end is this : 
And then, with Him, go hand in hand, 

Far into Bliss. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 1 



Mr. FRANK R. HIBBARD. 

WE meet to-night to commemorate the thirty- 
first anniversary of the founding of the 
Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church Sabbath 
School. 

As we look back over these thirty-one years of 
school life, we rejoice that we can bear our testi- 
mony that the life we have lived as a school has 
been lived by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved us and gave Himself for us ; that because we 
have been crucified with Christ, Christ has lived in 
us, and Christ having lived in us, we have been 
enabled in no small measure to live unto God. 

It has been a life derived and received from Him 
who said : "I am come that they might have life, 
and that they might have it more abundantly." It 
has been a life that has been nurtured by the " sin- 
cere milk of the Word," so that during all these years 
we have been enabled both to " hold forth the Word 
of Life," as being the " power of God unto salvation," 
and to " hold fast the faithful Word " by which we 
have been furnished for every good work which we 
have been privileged to perform. It has been a life 
quickened and energized by the indwelling Spirit of 
God. Because the "law of the spirit of life in 

1 See page 10. 

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Christ J esus has made us free from the law of sin 
and death/' we have known in our school experi- 
ence the blessedness of " walking not after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit " ; of being " strengthened with 
all might, according to His glorious power, unto all 
patience and long-suffering with joyfulness"; of 
being " builded together through the Spirit"; and of 
being enabled to " keep the unity of the Spirit in 
the bond of peace." 

So, my dear friends, we may truly say that our 
three decades of school life have been born of faith 
in God, fed by the Word of God, and quickened by 
the Spirit of God. 

If we should carefully review the school's history 
for these years, I feel assured that we should find 
that it had been animated by one purpose ; that it 
had steadily aimed at one definite end; and that it 
had been controlled by a single dominating motive. 
We would find that its one animating purpose has 
been to "give the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ " ; that the 
one definite end at which it has aimed in all its work 
has been, that the children placed in its care should 
" all be taught of the Lord," and become the " children 
of God by faith in Christ Jesus"; and that the one 
dominating motive that has controlled it in all its 
activities has been to "walk worthy of the Lord 
unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work." 

This school has had its own distinct individuality. 
Some of the characteristics which have been peculiar 
to it have been referred to in the historical sketch, 
and it will therefore be unnecessary for me to refer 



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155 



to them ; but there are one or two very noticeable 
features which at this time are deserving of mention. 

One is the unquestioning loyalty, the unflagging 
devotion, the unquenchable enthusiasm, and the pas- 
sionate love of all the teachers in the work to which 
they have been called. 

What this school has been, has been due, under 
God, to the earnest and united corps of teachers who 
have given themselves in complete self-surrender to 
the work of leading the children to Christ, and in- 
structing them in the principles of the gospel. 

The debt of gratitude, affection, and love due the 
teachers from the superintendent is simply inesti- 
mable. By their loyal cooperation, quick response, 
earnest prayers, and heartfelt sympathy, they have 
been at all times to him a wonderful source of 
strength, and a vigorous incentive to his activity. 

Many are the schools in our city well equipped 
with teachers, but no school in the land surpasses, 
and few equal, the Throop Avenue School in the 
sterling qualities of its teaching corps. Wonder- 
fully has God blessed us in this particular, and to 
Him be all the praise. 

Another noticeable feature which is deserving of 
mention is the work of the Men's Bible Class, under 
the leadership of Mr. Russell W. McKee. 

This class is entitled to a prominent place in our 
thoughts, because of the character of its members, 
the marvelous triumphs of grace it has witnessed, 
and the wide-spread influence it has exerted. Its 
members have come from all ranks of life, and in the 
class they have all been blended in the most delight- 



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ful harmony and brotherly affection. Many of the 
most obdurate and hardened sinners have by it been 
led to Christ, and have witnessed, by the devotion 
and purity of their lives, to the power of the gospel 
in transforming and moulding character. 

This class was organized in the Park Avenue 
Chapel, and in February, 1875, it was transferred to 
this school. For twenty-five years, therefore, it has 
been identified with our work. To the honored and 
revered teacher we extend at this time our sincere 
and hearty congratulations for all that he has been 
privileged to accomplish for the Master, and for the 
souls that have been committed to his care. 

In the name of the school I beg the privilege of 
laying at the feet of our beloved pastor, at this 
Jubilee time, our small and feeble tribute of esteem, 
affection, and love. I have said that what this school 
has been is due, under God, to its corps of teachers ; 
and now I want to say that what these teachers have 
been, has been due, under God, to the teaching, the 
life, and the example of the pastor. What he has 
been to each of us in counsel, in suggestion, in sym- 
pathy, in helpfulness, in incentive, and in inspiration, 
can never be known nor adequately appreciated until 
we, with all the blood-washed, shall surround the 
Throne of God and of the Lamb, and there see with 
clear vision what has been the breadth and length, 
and depth and height, of his love and devotion. 
Blessed is the school that has enjoyed the ministra- 
tions of such a man of God. 

And now, my dear fellow-workers, in view of all 
that the Lord by His grace and Spirit has been to 



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157 



us, and of all that He has done for us, and by us, in 
the last third of a century, and with the conscious- 
ness that He has bestowed upon us the inestimable 
privilege of being co-laborers with Him in this most 
blessed of all forms of Christian service, shall we 
not face the future with courage and enthusiasm, 
determined that while the Lord shall tarry, inas- 
much as to this work we have been sent by God, 
that in this work we are taught of God, and that for 
our equipment we are promised the fullness of God, 
we will give to it the entire and unceasing devotion 
of our whole being ? And to us all may there be 
given the realization of that most blessed and all- 
inclusive promise, that " our God will supply all our 
need according to His riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus." 



THE TRUE OBJECT OF THE SABBATH 
SCHOOL. 1 



Rev. JOHN ERSKINE ADAMS. 

ROSS STREET sends with her pastor her greet- 
ings and congratulations to-night. It is not 
necessary for me to say that the close and tender re- 
lations in which she stands to her sister, born of the 
same mother, nourished at the same breast, and 
grounded in the same faith, inspire an earnest interest 
not only in the exercises you have been enjoying dur- 
ing the past week, and which come to their close this 
evening, but also in your future influence and pros- 
perity. And before entering upon the topic assigned 
me, let me say that the character of this celebration 
must have been especially gratifying, not only to 
yourselves, but to all who have at heart the future 
interests of the Church of Christ. For it seems to 
me that you have not been merely indulging your- 
selves in a Jubilee, which, however well merited by 
the extraordinary results of the years in which your 
pastor has been with you, is to close to-night ; nor in 
a pyrotechnic outburst of eloquence which is to end 
as all fireworks do end — in smoke. The rockets 
have gone up, but, if I am not mistaken, the sticks 
will not return to earth charred and void. It seems 

1 See page 10. 

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159 



to me the selection of topics on which you have 
been addressed is significant. While you have not 
forgotten "the things that are behind," you are 
" reaching forth unto those things which are before." 
If this is a season of commemoration, it is also one of 
consecration ; if you are in review, and your banners 
are proudly waving, you are also " at quarters n and 
at target practice, preparing to hit the mark more 
effectually when the battle-ship shall resume her war- 
paint, load her guns, and enter again into her seri- 
ous business of bombarding the fortifications of the 
enemy. With this view, therefore, of these celebra- 
tions, I can understand the selection of the topic we 
are to take up to-night. And without further in- 
dulging myself in felicitations, I shall best meet the 
desires of your committee who assigned this subject 
to me by entering at once into it with all seriousness. 

I wish you to note, therefore, in the first place, the 
wording of my theme : The true object of the Sab- 
bath School. This would imply that there is danger 
of subordinating the main issue to others compara- 
tively unimportant, and losing our grasp on the 
central, dominating purpose in the Sunday School 
work, because of minor results which may be 
achieved. In order, therefore, to clear the ground, 
let me suggest some of the less essential objects 
which are perhaps in many instances unduly mag- 
nified in the Sabbath School. The primary object 
of the Sabbath School is not the development of the 
social life of its members. 

This is one of the results which will inevitably 
and properly be realized. The relations existing be- 



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tween teacher and scholar, desk and bench, are of 
the most tender and beautiful character. I have 
seen many instances in which a consecrated teacher 
has exerted more influence over the life of the child, 
or the youth, committed to his care, than the pastor 
or even the parent ; the former prevented by many 
duties, and the large extent of his parish, from com- 
ing into close touch with many in the Sabbath 
School ; the latter in many cases living unconsecrated 
lives in the home. Here the teacher has a great op- 
portunity which no one else can embrace. To enter 
into intimate acquaintance with each of his scholars, 
to study the peculiar characteristics, the peculiar 
temperament, the peculiar temptations, the peculiar 
strength and weakness of every member of his class, 
is one of his most important duties. I cannot dwell 
upon this, nor is it my function. But even when 
this has been done, and teachers and scholars have 
established this endearing fellowship, the main object 
of the class has not been realized. Nor is the pur- 
pose of the Sabbath School fully accomplished by 
becoming an adjunct of the Church. 

Here again, we may say, we touch an important 
phase of the work. I am not putting it too strongly 
when I say that the superintendent or teacher who 
does not labor with this end in view — that his school 
or his scholar may be a component part of the 
Church, participating in its worship and sharing in 
its toil, who does not develop the spiritual life and 
gifts of the scholars, that they may become its useful 
and consecrated members, is failing utterly to ac- 
complish one of the principal objects of Sunday- 
school organization. This is true of Young People's 



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161 



Societies, of all organizations ; but in a special and 
important sense it is true of the Sabbath School, 
which must be the Church's nursery and kinder- 
garten. And yet, I am forced to give this a subor- 
dinate place, in considering the topic of the evening. 

The object of the Sabbath School is not simply 
the conversion of its scholars. This may perhaps 
seem to some a rather startling proposition. You 
are a teacher, and the dearest hope of your heart 
is to see your scholars confessing the Lord Jesus 
Christ, redeemed by his blood, and sanctified in the 
Christian life. And unless this hope be realized, you 
have not yet received, dear teacher, that full sanc- 
tion of your work which you may claim from God. 
Until this is accomplished, all other results should 
be subordinated to that of witnessing the work of 
grace in the life of your scholar. But when that 
precious life has been consecrated to God and re- 
deemed by the blood of Christ, is your task ended ? 
Has it not, rather, in reality only just begun? Does 
not the Lord commit to your keeping that babe new 
born, that it may be nourished in the Word ; that it 
may grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ 1 ? As a matter of fact, a 
considerable proportion of our adult Sabbath-school 
membership are professing Christians, members of 
the Church, living consecrated lives. But in no 
sense does this fact render their relation to the 
Sabbath School less significant, or the duty of the 
Sabbath School to them less important. And this 
leads me directly to the positive thought I would 
give you to-night. 

The true object of the Sabbath School is to be 
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found in the study of, and instruction in, the Word 
of God. This was the purpose for which it originally 
came into existence. The name of Robert Raikes 
has been immortalized in this connection. In the 
year 1780, business called him into the suburbs of 
Gloucester, England, where he lived. His heart was 
touched by the desperate condition of the children, 
who were employed chiefly in the pin-factories, and 
whose profanity and godlessness were as proficient 
as were their clothes deficient. Four female teachers 
were engaged to instruct them in reading and in the 
Catechism, for two hours each Sabbath morning, 
from ten to twelve. The afternoon was spent m 
receiving further instruction — in attending Church 
and repeating portions of the Catechism. This was 
the foundation-stone upon which the magnificent 
structure of the Sabbath School has been built. I 
cannot take your time to review the history of the 
development of the work during the last century. 
It has exceeded the largest expectations of its 
founders, because it has been true to the original 
purpose for which it was created. It has become 
the mightiest power in the Christian education of 
youth the world has ever seen, because it has taken 
the Bible for its text-book. It has not only in its 
faith supplied virtue, but in its virtue supplied 
knowledge. It has touched the deepest springs of 
youthful life, controlled its most earnest attention, 
commanded its unswerving loyalty, and aroused its 
holiest enthusiasm, only, I believe, because it has 
grounded it in the fundamental truths of the Word 
of Grod. Built on any other foundation, it would 



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163 



long since have proved its unworthiness and insta- 
bility. Torn from its vital relation to the Bible, it 
would long since have perished, suffering a well- 
merited death. Had it been organized for social 
culture, intellectual training, a course in moral aes- 
thetics, or merely as an adjunct of the Church, and 
these alone, it could not have stood the tests of time. 
The Sabbath School to-day is a vital power because 
the Bible is a vital truth. Its membership is an 
active and enthusiastic body of believers, because it 
is instructed in the fundamentals of all faith and the 
eternal truths of revelation. It is the mainstay of 
our churches, and the surety of intelligent, well- 
instructed and consecrated future generations, be- 
cause it believes, and acts on that belief, that " every 
Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
which is in righteousness: that the man of God," and 
I may add, I hope, not irreverently, the woman of 
God, "may be complete, furnished completely unto 
every good work." 

This truth is so familiar to us that I need not dwell 
upon it. You have been trying to sum up the re- 
sults of twenty-five years of work in this Church, in 
which your present pastor has been with you. We, 
his brother ministers, who know him, who are stirred 
by his fervor and eloquence upon the floor of Pres- 
bytery again and again, as he impresses upon us, with 
all the force of his magnificent personality, our duties, 
not only to our own churches, but to the unchurched 
masses about us, have little difficulty in grasping 
one of the secrets of this Church's power. But I am 



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sure that much of that success is due also to those 
who have supported him in his aggressive policy, 
who are thoroughly competent, and also thoroughly 
consecrated, because of their thorough training in 
Grod's Word in the Sabbath School, as well as the 
effective preaching of that Word from the pulpit. 

And this leads me, though perhaps it is departing 
a little from the subject assigned me, to say that 
I believe loyalty to our Church should be a duty 
recognized as much in the Sabbath School as in the 
Church. I believe this Church is effective in service 
to-day, because of the efficient teaching of its doc- 
trines and standards in the Sabbath School. Your 
pastor, if he is anything, is a Presbyterian through 
and through. If the pastor represents the Sabbath 
School, there is a good deal of blue Presbyterianism 
inoculated into the character and backbone of the 
scholars who gather beneath your roof from Sab- 
bath to Sabbath. And surely this is as it should 
be. I am speaking with conviction when I say that 
you cannot teach Presbyterianism without teaching 
the Bible in a very thorough sense. I am also con- 
vinced, with all due regard to our denominational 
brethren, that you cannot teach the Bible without 
teaching a good deal that is embodied in our West- 
minster Confession and Shorter Catechism. I be- 
lieve there are many conscientious and admirable 
teachers, outside of our own Sabbath schools and 
churches, who are better Presbyterians than they 
know. In spite of the demand which has arisen for 
a shorter creed — and for many reasons I would like 
to see that desire gratified — I believe to-day that 



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the Westminster Confession is the most compre- 
hensive compendium of Bible doctrine the world 
has ever seen. And I believe that, as Sabbath School 
teachers, we are largely achieving the object of our 
work as we are thoroughly grounding our scholars 
in the doctrines of Presbyterianism. It is our busi- 
ness to make good Christians out of our scholars ; 
it is also our business to make good Presbyterians 
of them. It is one of our most fundamental prin- 
ciples that we shall have an educated and intelligent 
ministry in the pulpit. This is demanded, and the 
demand is respected; and because that demand is 
respected, Presbyterianism has stood in the van of 
progressive thought and Christian enterprise. She 
stands there to-day. But we demand more than this. 
We demand that there shall be an enlightened pew ; 
a people built up in their most holy faith and rooted 
and grounded in the fundamental doctrines of the 
Atonement. 

More and more is there need of this. I am not, 
and never can be, in sympathy with the cry for non- 
sectarianism ; for the abolition of creed and the 
unification of doctrine, and the breaking down ut- 
terly of all denominational lines. I believe there is 
room for all and work for all churches, so long as 
they rest upon Biblical truth, and preach the neces- 
sary atonement of the divine Christ ; so long as 
they preach God's righteousness, and man's sinful- 
ness ; so long as they preach that the wages of sin 
is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through 
Jesus Christ our Lord ; so long as they hold to an 
infallible Bible. For any organization that rejects 



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these fundamental truths I cannot believe there is 
room or work ; I believe they are keeping back the 
coming of the Kingdom of God. But, brethren, I 
believe there is room for us, and more room than we 
have ever yet occupied; and more work than we 
have ever yet done ; and I believe that we shall oc- 
cupy this room and do this work in the years that 
are before us, only as our Sabbath schools bring up 
the younger generation upon the sincere milk of the 
Word. 

This is the object of our Sunday School, to see to 
it that the faith once for all delivered to the saints 
is handed down to the oncoming generations, who 
are to stand where we stand to-day; who are to 
teach and preach when our lips are closed ; who are 
to represent the Church, the body of Christ, and 
more especially that branch of the Church which 
has been nourished by the blood of our forefathers, 
when this generation is dead and gone. We need 
to teach the Bible as we have never taught it before 
in our Sunday schools. We must teach it in its 
unity of history and purpose and revelation j in its 
inspiration and infallibility ; in its great doctrines, 
which teach far more than simply the Fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man ; and especially in 
its revelation of Jesus Christ ; in His character ; in 
His teachings ; in His personality ; and in the ever- 
glowing, living, infinite truth of His atonement. 
We need to teach that Bible in its call to men for 
service, for sacrifice, for cross-bearing, for consecra- 
tion. We need to teach it as it lays upon the heart 
of every follower of Christ the solemn responsibility 



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of sending its message through the length and 
breadth of our own land and every other land. In 
other words, we need to teach that Bible as it pro- 
claims the great commission of the Son of God to 
the sons of men : " Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel." This is the work of the pulpit, 
but it is also the work of the Sabbath School. Do 
not, I beseech of you, neglect it. 

As I look back with you to-night, and bless God 
for the rich measure of His grace which has been 
given to pastor and people in this quarter-century, 
I cannot help looking into the future and asking: 
" What may the Throop Avenue Presbyterian Church 
be twenty-five years hence?" Who can answer that 
question, save omniscient God ! But to this extent 
we may answer it. What this Church will then be, 
may be measured, not only by the character of the 
pulpit ministrations of your pastor, — whom may 
God spare to you through many years to come, — 
but by the earnestness, thoroughness, and fidelity 
with which, from Sabbath to Sabbath, from year to 
year, the teachers in your Sunday School are nour- 
ishing their scholars in the vital truths of the Word 
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. 



FORWARD." i 



Rev. THEO. L. CUYLER, D. D. 

IT is good to be here in this blessed atmosphere 
of love. I have to-day intermitted my nsnal 
work of preaching the Gospel that I might come and 
join in these sacred festivities. I wanted to come 
and bring my congratulations to this noble Church 
for their splendid enlargement during the years that 
are past, since the time that I first came to Brook- 
lyn and this Church was the farthest outpost of 
Presbyterianism in what was then a rural region. 
I wanted to come and bring my hearty congratula- 
tions to your beloved pastor on these his silver 
nuptials. Long may his silver trumpet ring out the 
glorious Gospel within these walls, and distant be 
the day when the silver cords shall be loosed, and 
he shall go up to meet his spiritual children in glory ! 
Well, I may as well say it right to his face : I do 
love your pastor. He is a man after my own heart. 
We sympathize with each other, even up to our ears, 
and in that matter I have obtained absolute perfec- 
tion. He is a good way behind me, and long may 
he continue there. But 1 11 tell you one thing. He 
1 See page 10. 

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169 



is not too deaf to hear the sweet accents of love that 
have been pouring in to warm and gladden his heart. 
I rejoice that during all these years, five and twenty, 
he has stood at his post as a servant of his Master 
with such grand fidelity. I rejoice that he has never 
degraded his pulpit with any sensational pyrotech- 
nics. I have observed that fireworks never show 
well except in a dark atmosphere. I rejoice that he 
has always been true to the blessed Book. The 
wildest gales of pessimistic criticism have never 
made a window-pane rattle in this edifice of the liv- 
ing God. Above all, he has lifted up the cross of 
the Crucified, winning and welcoming many, many 
souls to the Master. So much for him. 

Now to pass on to yourselves. Your Jubilee Week 
is ending under the palm-trees and by the wells of 
water, but you will have to march forward. The 
three disciples could not always tarry on the Mount, 
though Peter — Peter-like — wanted to stay there 
and build two or three huts to shut up the King of 
Glory in. No; there was work to be done there. 
Dear brethren and sisters of the Throop Avenue 
Church, what next ? What next 1 

Two or three things I would say to you in the 
most loving earnestness. You must feel more than 
ever your tremendous responsibility. Daniel Web- 
ster once said the grandest thought that can ever 
take possession of the human mind is the thought 
of personal responsibility to God. The grandest 
thought that can impel a minister or church mem- 
ber is to feel the tremendous responsibility which 
they have to their fellow-men around them, for 
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whom they are bound to labor and whom they are 
bound to save. No church can do its work in the 
pulpit alone. The pew must reinforce the pulpit. 
Every member must feel, from the youngest to the 
oldest — every one must feel, "I am a servant of 
Christ. A minister of His to do His will and His 
work." And I want every one of you to feel that 
while in one sense it is Dr. Foote's church, it is 
yours, yours, yours, and from this time on more 
than ever you are to do your fullest work for your 
Master. 

First, you must do it as his witnesses. Do you 
suppose the Lord Jesus Christ died for you and 
the Holy Spirit came to win you, simply to make 
you happy and comfortable? Ah, no, no. There is 
no palace-car, my brethren, for you to ride luxuri- 
ously on to glory. I am afraid that those who come 
to the gate in a palace-car will not be so sure of 
admission. No ; every one of you must feel, " I am 
a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I represent 
Him. Look at me every day, not only in church, 
but in business, in social life — wherever I am — to 
see what Christ is in the person of His followers." 
Don't think I am irreverent ; when I see a faithful, 
God-fearing, large-hearted, soul-winning man, I see 
in one sense the Master, for He said, " I am with 
you, and in you." It was the Christ in Paul that 
made him so victorious; that sent down through the 
centuries the man, his messages, his life, his labors. 
"Wherever you go, people will look at you to see 
what it is to be a Christian. I think worse than any 
scoff of the skeptic is the betrayal of Christ by an 



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inconsistent Christian. You have either to be a 
leader or a stumbling-block. Which will you be? 
Suppose a lawyer brings up his witnesses in court, 
and the first one knows nothing ; the next one con- 
tradicts himself; the next one gives testimony all 
against him. That case is thrown out of court 
through the perfect breakdown of the witnesses. 
Shall the case of the Crucified Master be thrown out 
through your unfaithful witness-bearing? God for- 
bid ! The power of a Christian personality is to-day 
the most tremendous argument for the crusade of 
Christ. It is not, therefore, what you say so much as 
that you are, every one of you, the representative of 
Jesus Christ. I want to burn that thought into 
your very hearts. It is the power of personality. 
The man or woman that walked in your shoes into 
this sanctuary to-night, what about him? What 
about her? Ask yourselves this question: "Am I 
to look through the Throop Avenue Church records 
to find out whether I am a Christian ? " 

You must not only be witness-bearing, amiable, 
pure, honest, loving, but you are to be soul- winners — 
soul- winners every one of you. Do you wish, my 
dear brothers and sisters, to leave to that faithful 
minister all the joy and glory of winning every con- 
vert that has ever been brought into this congrega- 
tion ? Did not the Master as much mean you to be 
a soul- winner as any ordained minister of Jesus 
Christ ? Why, it is just as much your business to 
fill this house every Sabbath as it is my brother 
Foote's business. How many of you invite your 
unconverted neighbors to the house of God on 



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Sunday ? Is this gospel, life ? Are some of your 
neighbors going down to everlasting death? You 
meet them in business ; you meet them socially ; 
you bring your influence to bear on them a hundred 
ways. How many of your unconverted neighbors 
do you feel it your duty to invite even to come and 
hear the gospel ? If all our church members felt it 
was their responsibility to bring their unconverted 
neighbors to the house of God, how few of the seats 
would be vacant and how many souls would be 
reached ! We do not half use the personal persua- 
sion of individual Christians for the building of our 
churches. I want you to go home and think about 
this. I want you to feel that you have no right to 
shake off your responsibility for that unconverted, 
non-church-going neighbor of yours. Don't let him 
be buried up by his atheistic newspaper all God's 
day, if you can bring him to the house of God. I 
don't believe that the members of the Church feel 
one tenth the responsibility they ought about bring- 
ing the unconverted to the house of the Lord. 

Let it not stop at the bringing of them into the 
house of God. You have got to work in personal 
effort for the conversion of souls. The passage in 
that Book reading, " Eedeeming the time," is not a 
happy translation. The words literally are, "Buy 
your opportunity." In short, it means " the nick of 
time." Successful men are men who have made the 
most of their opportunities. Battles turn on a few 
moments. The salvation of souls turns on small 
pivots 5 on single efforts, in the strength of God, to 
win to Christ. Have you no opportunity, dear 



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brothers and sisters, to win souls ? I do not mean 
only Sunday-school teachers with your classes. Do 
you know that the unconverted must wonder why, 
if all we say is true, we do not take any interest in 
them? Good old Dr. Spring said that he never felt 
so much like sinking through the floor as when he 
went to the house of a wealthy lady that he had 
somehow got afraid of, because she lived in luxury. 
He had never talked with her about her soul. But 
he determined at last to go and have a plain, loving 
talk with her. He went into the drawing-room, and 
there the good old man opened the subject kindly 
and faithfully. What was the first response he got % 
" My pastor, I have been waiting for you to do this 
a great many years." He had been afraid to ap- 
proach the subject with one who was waiting to be 
beckoned and led to the Master ! There is one thing 
I fear to meet. It is the awful specter of lost oppor- 
tunities. God keep you and me from having such 
specters — lost opportunities to win souls to Christ, 
floating by us. How many there are who are won- 
dering why we don't come to them oftener to win 
them to Christ! Oh, how many times the door is a 
little ajar and ready to be pushed in ! Why not be 
on the lookout all the time and watch for opportu- 
nities ? Watch for them as Harlan Page did, who 
made it a rule that he never would be ten minutes 
or fifteen minutes in company with any person with- 
out saying something to do him good, and the 
result was, that although he was a layman (and I 
am talking to lay Christians to-night), he could 
point to a hundred souls or more at his early death 



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whom he had brought to the Master. We never 
know, when we are doing a good thing, how much 
good we are doing. How little did Edward Kimball 
know, when he spoke in Boston many years ago to 
that dull-faced boy who was among his scholars, 
ignorant of his Bible, that he was to become, finally, 
the foremost layman of his day ? That boy's name 
is Dwight L. Moody. England just now is being 
shaken by tremendous conflicts against Ritualism. 
There is no knowing where this war will end, and 
the man who leads it is John Kensit, a layman who 
is determined to rouse England to a sense of the 
encroachment of high Ritualism and Romanism. 
Yesterday I got a letter from a young minister 
whose father was once a Primitive Methodist minis- 
ter in a little church in Brooklyn. His father is 
now in England. He wrote me yesterday these 
words : " John Kensit, who is shaking England, years 
ago, one night, stood on the verge of a crowd in 
a street in London. He heard my father, the Primi- 
tive Methodist, preach, and was there converted. 
My father came out of the church discouraged be- 
cause there were none to preach to, and determined 
to preach in the streets." And lately Kensit ad- 
mitted that he was converted by the preaching of 
the Primitive Methodist in the streets. Years ago, 
in Colchester, a poor old preacher came through a 
snow-storm, in his thin coat, to preach ; and when 
they said to him, " There are not enough to preach 
to," he said, " Yes, I must preach." And he preached 
on " Look unto me, . . . and be saved." In the course 
of his sermon he pointed to Charles H. Spurgeon, 



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who was present, and said, " Yon lad that looks so 
sad can never get comfort until he comes to Christ." 
That sermon was the greatest work done on God's 
globe that day. That brought to Christ the most 
transcendent preacher of the gospel the nineteenth 
century has witnessed. Spurgeon never saw the 
man again — he crept back into obscurity. 

Dear friends, what a glorious thing it would be if 
this church could go right out of this Jubilee into 
a great revival. Why not? What next? What 
next ? Take the promises. Follow the example of 
the old negro in Virginia who said, "I just lay right 
down on God's promises and pray right up." That 
is what you are to do. Take the promises and work 
up to them. Don't, I beg of you, send for any help 
from abroad. Don't let any one else deprive you of 
the joy of winning souls to Christ. Now and then 
God creates a Moody, sometimes some other Heaven- 
blessed evangelist. During my own thirty years in 
the pulpit every revival we ever had began with the 
church at the Mercy-Seat, without looking anywhere 
under the heavens for anybody. We went to head- 
quarters and the blessing came. I do not speak 
disparagingly of any man who loves to preach or 
win souls, but you tell any young man entering the 
ministry, " It is your business to visit the sick, and 
marry those that are to be married, and to bury the 
dead, and to prepare so many sermons for Sunday ; 
but if souls are to be converted, you must send for 
somebody else to do it," and if that man has any 
brains he will never stoop to a pulpit. When I was 
about to study for the ministry at Princeton (God 



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bless dear old Princeton !), had I been told, "Your 
business is merely perfunctory, to go through the 
mechanical work of a minister 5 but if souls are to be 
saved, you will have to get some one from outside," 
I should have become, what I was in terrible danger 
of becoming, — a lawyer. No, I should never have 
gone to the pulpit if I could not have experienced 
the joy of leading souls out of darkness into the 
light, and winning souls to the Master. 

Now, these are two important points: First, feel 
your responsibility. Next, feel " when any one 
looks at you, he ought to see your Master." What 
are personal property, gold and silver, stocks and 
real estate, in comparison with having an estate in 
Heaven ? 

I want to fire the hearts of this beloved congre- 
gation to-night with a most intensely earnest and 
solemn determination that they will now go for- 
ward; forward with new consecration; forward 
with new devotion to their Master; forward, for- 
ward, to win souls to Christ ! Can you do it your- 
selves ? No ! No ! There is One that can do it, if 
you will let Him, through you. What you want 
is the power from on high. What that Cunard 
steamer wants is the fire in the furnace to release 
the latent power in the coal-bunkers, and let it lay 
hold of the screws and drive her forward against 
wind and wave. What you want in this Church 
most of all is the Heavenly fire — the descent of the 
Holy Spirit. Buffalo to-night, as you know, is lit by 
Niagara Falls. All the machinery will whirl to- 
night by the power that is generated by Niagara 



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Falls. That latent electric power in the mighty 
cataract has been there since long before the first 
Indian ever saw the Falls — all unused, undeveloped. 
Now they are using it. That mighty power that 
can make this pulpit luminous and your lives glori- 
ous and win souls here, waits, waits to be employed, 
just as the electric power of the cataract waited for 
the neighboring city to use it. Will you to-night 
go home and pray for the coming of Christ's bless- 
ing that can gladden the heart ; the descent of the 
Holy Spirit? 

Let me again thank you for the privilege of being 
with you. I should have felt a neglected man, 
Brother Foote, if you had not invited me. I would 
have felt as if you were forgetting old friends if you 
had not had Brother Wells and me, your old associ- 
ates in the Presbytery, to come and rejoice with 
you. Wherefore, I have come and brought my sim- 
ple message, and if you begin to draw the net and 
the net is likely to break with the wealth of fishes, 
we will come and help you draw the net, and we 
shall rejoice in the privilege. So, as I bid you good 
night, I once more say to you all, pastor, elders, 
superintendents, teachers, fathers, mothers, all young 
people's organizations, all your societies, forward, 
forward! Those are the marching orders to Israel 
on the brink of the sea. There is Canaan, there is 
Egypt. Which? Backward, Egypt — forward, Ca- 
naan. To which will you go, beloved ? Commander- 
in-chief to my Master, forward! -Forward, dear 
brother, carrying the banner of Christ at the head 
of this Church, until the time comes when it wraps 
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around you as your winding-sheet ! Forward, Sun- 
day-school teachers, while there is a child in this 
neighborhood to be reached and brought in ! For- 
ward, all men and women of faith to the Mercy-Seat. 
There is the cloud ready to burst in a shower of 
blessings upon this beloved Church. Forward to 
the throne of God, and then these walls will have a 
jubilee, and will echo with the new songs of con- 
verted souls, and Heaven will respond as you ga- 
ther in the harvest and are ready to sing, "Hallelu- 
jah ! Hallelujah ! the Lord Jesus Christ omnipotent 
reigneth ! " Good night, beloved brother. God bless 
you on and on and on until the morning breaks 
and I trust you and I will clasp hands before the 
Throne of Glory. 



THE CLOSING ADDRESS. 1 



Rev. J. D. WELLS, D. D. 

THIS is the eighth and last day of these com- 
memorative services. It is not given to many 
churches to have the like. You have reviewed a 
pastorate of twenty-five years ; a church history of 
more than thirty-six years ; and a mission-school 
history of forty-six years. My memory covers them 
all. The change from the village of Williamsburg 
to the city or part of the city of New York, is not 
greater, relatively, than the transformation of the 
region within whose limits you have wrought for 
God and souls from the beginning until now. The 
moral change is more worthy of notice than the 
material. 

There are present and active in all the work of 
your Mission and Church now, men and women at 
the high meridian of their strength and usefulness, 
who were in their teens and not confessors of Christ 
when the Mission was opened for the children of this 
neighborhood. The grace of God that bringeth sal- 
vation came most opportunely to prepare workers 
for the field waiting for the service. They heard the 
call and cheerfully responded. 

1 See page 10. 

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Some of the early toilers have finished their course 
and entered into rest. They are part of the great 
cloud of witnesses that compass you about, intelli- 
gent and wistful observers, who love to recall their 
own toil, and rejoice in yours. 

I add that the Holy Spirit has borne witness with 
your spirits, that in this work of many years you 
have been led by Him. If this is true, it follows on 
the testimony of His Word, that you are children of 
God. " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God." (Romans viii : 14.) 

In assigning the many parts of this Jubilee service 
from Sunday, October 30, until the present time, to 
different persons, it pleased the committee of ar- 
rangements to give me the privilege and responsi- 
bility of speaking the last words, and choosing my 
own theme. 

I need not remind you that you have been highly 
favored in hearing your honored pastor's hearty salu- 
tations, and the words of the other brethren who 
have spoken to you in the name of the Lord, and 
also the words of the sweet singers, male and female, 
who have given emphasis to precious truths by the 
melody and harmony of many voices filling the house. 
I share the joy of all in the review of the past, the 
survey of the present, and the anticipation of the 
future. 

Let me tell a little of my own joy. 

In your mission work, your church work, and 
your pastoral work, there has been one stedfast 
purpose, to adopt no questionable methods. In your 
day of small things, as of the larger and the largest, 



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181 



you have never swerved from that purpose. But it 
has been more than negative. Not only have you 
kept clear from methods of work which I need not 
name, for they are well known and popular, but you 
have sought out, and practised with diligence and 
prayer, only churchly methods on which you could 
confidently ask the blessing of God who dwelleth in 
Zion. 

When the children gathered for instruction in the 
early years were rudest and most irresponsive to 
Christian teaching and influence, you wisely judged 
that God had adapted His Word to the human mind 
and entire nature. So you gave " precept upon pre- 
cept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon 
line, here a little and there a little 79 to the smaller 
and the larger ones, and God blessed you in your 
work. I witnessed the process and its results. I 
bear grateful testimony to this as a fact at the be- 
ginning, and in the continuance of your work. 

When you saw the need of better and more com- 
modious apartments than a store for the shelter and 
convenience of those who, in growing numbers, 
looked to you as their teachers and guardians, you 
built the structure in Throop Avenue near Ellery 
Street. This you have kept in good repair. It is 
still thronged with the multitude of children and 
youth composing your Mission School. And it 
stands for a future larger, every way, and more 
beneficent, we trust, even than its past. 

There the Lord gave you souls for your hire. 
You could ask him for nothing more precious. But 
where should these young disciples find a church 



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home with nurture to a stronger and holier life in 
Christ ? The question was soon answered. You did 
not plant a mission to be an appendage to some 
older church at a distance. You wisely withdrew 
from the churches you loved, and where you were 
endeared to pastors and people, and the Presbytery 
registered your names with the names of those 
given you in the Mission. In 1862 "The Throop 
Avenue Mission Church" was organized and enrolled 
among the churches then under the care of the Pres- 
bytery of Nassau. From that time the rich and the 
poor have met together for worship, fellowship, and 
work. 

At last the time came that a few adults of the 
German race and their children needed a place 
where they could meet for worship and instruction 
in the dear tongue of the Fatherland. You gladly 
flung open your doors and gave them the free use of 
your Mission building. I rejoice with you in the 
result — to wit, the early organization of the Hop- 
kins Street German Presbyterian Church, the pur- 
chase of lots, and the erection of a commodious 
brick edifice while the Rev. John Meury was pastor. 
Now the Rev. Arnold W. Fismer, the faithful and 
beloved pastor of the same church, is relatively as 
important to it as our dear Dr. Foote to this. Early 
in February of this year the Hopkins Street Church 
celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, and an hon- 
ored brother, a corporate member of this church, 
gave " a grandfather's talk" on the occasion, a talk 
which an older than he would gladly have given had 
his health at the time permitted. 



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183 



With the growth of the city and your church 
work, you moved from Throop Avenue below, to 
this attractive corner, given to the congregation for 
permanent occupancy by one of your own corporate 
members. Here a modest building was erected, and 
here the Church, under a new name — "The Throop 
Avenue Presbyterian Church" — started on a new 
career with a wider outlook. More than once you 
have enlarged your chapel. It is now so transformed 
as to retain hardly a semblance of its former self. 
Here in the earlier years you knew struggles and 
changes, under two pastorates, that brought you into 
deep sympathy with other churches in their times of 
weakness. 

Then came the pastorate of our dear brother 
whom we all delight to honor. It is not easy to 
compass in thought and heart even the leading facts 
of the Rev. Dr. L. R. Foote's pastorate of twenty- 
five years. In his manifold salutations of all coop- 
erating with him here, he could not, or would not, 
salute himself last Sabbath morning. Happily, the 
salutation came to him last Thursday night from 
the lips and heart of Elder McKee, and became pre- 
cious and lasting silver and gold in the loving-cup 
of his grateful people. 

The history of building, enlarging, and beautify- 
ing your chapel, your final removal to this commo- 
dious and beautiful sanctuary, and paying for all, 
is quite too large a theme for the few moments that 
remain to me. I hope it has been fully written, or 
will be, and carefully preserved in the archives of 
the congregation as an heirloom for your successors. 



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Of infinitely greater interest here and in heaven 
is the gathering together nnto Christ, for salvation 
and service, of many hundreds, within these conse- 
crated walls, and the departure of scores at least, 
of the great and the small, to be forever with the 
Lord. 

Under the blessing of G-od your second Mission, 
on the corner of Evergreen Avenue and Troutman 
Street, grew strong enough to ask for separate 
organic church life. True to your Christian in- 
stincts, you gave a hundred of your adult members 
for that sacred purpose. And still you bestow upon 
it the fostering love and care which the stronger 
owes to the weaker, the mother to the child that 
G-od has graciously given her. 

I am thankful, dear friends, to have lived long 
enough to see with my own eyes what God has 
wrought for you, and for others by you. My joy in 
your pastor and in all your church work is very sin- 
cere. January 28, 1862, more than thirty-six years 
ago, I wrote in my historical diary these few words : 
" First consultation with Bro. James about organiz- 
ing a church in Throop Avenue. Laus Deo ! n That 
was Tuesday night. On Thursday night of the 
same week the subject was brought before the ses- 
sion of the South Third Street Presbyterian Church. 
The result is recorded in these words : " Was glad 
to find perfect unanimity as to the wisdom of it the 
moment the way seems clear." 

And now that you have passed from infancy to 
maturity let me bring to you the loving greeting and 
benediction of the mother church. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



185 



South Third Street Presbyterian Church 

through its session to the throop avenue 

Presbyterian Church, Greeting: 
Beloved Brethren: 

As a Christian Church you have reached an age 
and accomplished a work most worthy of grateful 
recognition. Not all who were once with us in the 
service of our common Master, and are now with you, 
have yet been called to the rest and recompense of 
the just. It is a great joy to know that they have 
always been a benediction to you, as they were to us 
in their earlier years. 

We have sincere joy, too, in recalling the sted- 
fastness and fidelity of service rendered by you as a 
people in the times of your weakness. 

We have watched with sacred interest your methods 
of work for souls near and far, and your liberal giv- 
ing for all the great objects of benevolence that have 
had claims upon you. 

As you have gone from one place of worship and 
service to another, always lengthening your cords 
and strengthening your stakes, you have been to us 
and many others a living object-lesson. We think 
you have never occupied a place from a store to your 
present commodious buildings, and especially the holy 
and beautiful house now your common church home, 
without the clearest evidence that you were led by 
Him who loves the gates of Zion more than all the 
dwellings of Jacob. 

Unused to publishing yourselves and your Sunday 
School and Church to the world, we think you do 
wisely in celebrating the forty-sixth anniversary of 
24 



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JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



your Sunday School j the thirty-sixth of the organi- 
zation of the Church; and the twenty-fifth of the 
pastorate of the Rev. Lewis Ray Foote, D. D. He 
has been your leader and fellow-helper during all the 
years of your later and most remarkable growth and 
abounding usefulness. We rejoice with you in his 
continued ability for service, although sometimes 
brought very low with painful and critical sickness. 
We pray God to guard his life and continue his pas- 
torate for many years to come. 

We congratulate you on the wisdom, consecration, 
and efficiency of those who have served the Church 
and congregation as office-bearers and Sunday-school 
workers. 

With you we wish to keep in mind the beloved 
ones who, having been with us and you in the family 
of God on the earth, are now with the Lord in the 
family of heaven. Let them be to us a cloud of wit- 
nesses compassing us about. Every year adds to 
their number and brings us all nearer to the time 
when we hope to be among them, and forever with 
the Lord, both theirs and ours. 

May it be our prayer and purpose to be stedfast 
and immovable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not 
in vain in the Lord. 

In behalf of the Church, and most sincerely, 
J. D. Wells, James R. Howe, 

Newell Woolsey Wells, John McKay, 
Davis S. Giffing, Nathan B. Roberts, 

Hugh McDougall, Charles W. Smith, 

John Adams, James L. Kortright. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



187 



May I add a word looking to the future ? 

Your next forty-six years in mission and church 
work may reasonably be expected to yield larger re- 
sults of souls saved, and of glory to God in the 
highest, than have been already known. A few of 
the young men and maidens now loving the Saviour, 
may be here far into the next century. In that case 
you will be co-workers with many others gathered 
in as the years go by. You that are young now 
will then be venerable for your years. It will be 
yours to testify in regard to religious beliefs and 
methods of church work from the beginning. Make 
yourselves thoroughly familiar with them now. 
Through all the years that God may give you, as 
wise master-builders make this building of God 
stronger and stronger. I do not refer chiefly to this 
beautiful material edifice, and yet it is not altogether 
out of my thought. Take as good care of this build- 
ing as the most favored of the people do of their 
own dwellings. It is a shame to dwell in our ceiled 
houses and let the house of God lie waste. 

In my study there are two large photographs of 
a wooden church building a hundred years old. Al- 
most fourscore years ago I sat among those who 
worshipped God there. By the loving thought of 
the people it has been so sacredly cared for that it 
shows no signs of decay. It gives promise of stand- 
ing in its strength and beauty for centuries to 
come. 

Surely, this holy and beautiful house, of more en- 
during material, may be the common Christian home 
of many successive generations of the great and the 



188 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



small. But I have chiefly in mind now another 
building that is dearer to God than the costliest 
cathedral. It is made up of those who are built on 
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ 
Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone. 

You have all learned enough of " the faith once 
delivered to the saints," earnestly to contend for it 
as long as you live. I rejoice with you that the 
tendency of thought and belief, in our own country 
and abroad, is back to the traditional belief of the 
fathers. The very stones dug out of the earth are 
bearing their silent testimony for the dear old Bible 
of our mothers and fathers. Do not fear for it. 
Used by the Holy Spirit to reveal and convey the 
salvation of God to our lost world, it will never 
be criticized out of the credence and love of God's 
sons and daughters. Stand in your lot with open 
eye and wistful heart, strong in the Lord and in the 
power of his might. Welcome light from every 
source. Its radiant center must always be God 
Himself. For " God is light, and in Him is no dark- 
ness at all." He has set his seal upon the transla- 
tions of the Bible into almost three hundred of the 
languages and dialects of the race. He has saved 
multitudes by means of them. I do not believe that 
He will remove His seal. I cannot believe that He 
will give His approval to the translations of another 
book that makes large historical records mere fic- 
tion, and the endorsement that Jesus Christ the Son 
of God gave to the Scriptures of the Old Testament 
little more than a weak concession to the mistaken be- 
lief of the Jews while He was among them in the flesh. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



189 



An eminent Brooklyn pastor was reported as 
using the following words to his own flock in March 
of this year : " We need the whole Bible to interpret 
every word of it. But the whole Bible does inter- 
pret every word in it, and this total impression leads 
me to the gate of life, leads me to the bosom of the 
Father." I add, millions have gone to the Father's 
bosom in the like faith. Dear old George Herbert 
was born in 1593. Let his heart- words to "The 
Holy Scriptures " be ours too. Then let the last 
hymn be sung, the prayer offered, the benediction 
pronounced, and the organ postlude send us away to 
think, to love, and to work for the Lord of glory 
until we see Him face to face. 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

PART I. 

Book ! infinite sweetness ! let my heart 

Suck every letter, and a honey gain, 
Precious for any grief in any part, 

To clear the breast, to mollify all pain. 

Thou art all health j health thriving till it make 

A full eternity. Thou art a mass 
Of strange delights, where we may wish and take. 

Ladies, look here ; this is the thankful glass 

That mends the looker's eyes j this is the well 
That washes what it shews. Who can endear 

Thy praise too much ? Thou art Heaven's lieger here 
Working against the States of Death and Hell. 



JUBILEE MEMORIAL 



Thou art joy's handsel. Heaven lies flat in thee, 
Subject to every mounter's bended knee. 

part n. 

Oh, that I knew how all thy lights combine, 
And the configurations of their glory ! 

Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, 
But all the constellations of the story. 

This verse marks that, and both do make a motion 
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie. 

Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion, 
These three make up some Christian's destiny. 

Such are thy secrets j which my life makes good, 
And comments on thee. For in every thing 

Thy words do find me out, and parallels bring, 
And in another make me understood. 

Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss : 
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss. 



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